Page 24 of Tag (The Golden Team #9)

Aponi

T he rain hadn’t stopped.

It drizzled now, soft and cold, dripping from the roof of the rec center like the building itself was crying.

I sat in the upstairs room, wrapped in one of Tag’s hoodies, the scent of him grounding me more than I wanted to admit.

My hands were cold.

Tag sat across from me, cleaning his sidearm in practiced silence. He hadn’t pushed. He hadn’t asked for more. Just stayed nearby—quiet, solid, unshakable.

Exactly what I needed.

I didn’t know what to say.

What do you say when the woman who gave you life might be helping destroy others?

“I used to think she was magic,” I said finally, my voice barely above a whisper. She was half Indian. Her other half must have been crazy.

Tag looked up. He didn’t interrupt.

“She had this long, dark red braid and a laugh that filled a room. She’d sing while brushing my hair at night. Called me her Little Hawk.”

I swallowed hard.

“She was everything. Until she wasn’t.”

He set the gun aside. “What happened?”

I leaned back against the wall, eyes fixed on the rain outside. “One day she packed a bag. Said she had to go fix something. Said I’d understand when I was older.”

I let out a breath that felt like it’d been trapped for fifteen years. “She never came back.”

(Flashback – Aponi at Thirteen)

I remember standing at the screen door, barefoot, watching her old truck's dust trail fade down the gravel road. We lived in an old cabin out in the desert. But she was always heading to the city. She said she had work there.

I clutched the dreamcatcher she’d made me the year before, the one with the turquoise beads and a single eagle feather.

She’d kissed my forehead and said, “Be strong. Like your name.”

I didn’t cry.

Not then.

I waited every day that summer, thinking she’d pull back up and scoop me into her arms.

She never did.

And eventually, I stopped believing in magic. I figured she must be dead. She never came home. And then the school turned me in because I didn’t have a mother, even though I was taking care of myself, I had a garden, and chickens I didn’t know anything else.

[End flashback]

“She abandoned me,” I whispered.

Tag moved across the room, kneeling in front of me. “Or she thought she was saving you.”

I looked into his eyes, searching for something—doubt, judgment, anything.

But all I found was understanding.

“You think she’s still the same person?” I asked.

He shook his head. “I think whoever she is now… you deserve to look her in the eye and find out.”

I stared at the rain.

Then I stood.

Grabbed my badge.

Strapped on my weapon.

“Let’s go,” I said.

Tag rose beside me. “You sure?”

“No,” I admitted. “But I’m ready.”