Page 185 of Sins of the Hidden

Dad leaned forward, elbows on his knees, then straightened again. Mom's fingers worried the edge of a throw pillow.

"Your father wants to tell you some things, honey," Mom said finally, her voice barely above a whisper. "Just... hear him out, okay?"

I nodded—that was what I had come here to do. I found myself glancing toward V, drawing strength from his unwavering presence. The silent support in his gaze kept me grounded when I felt like I might float away.

Dad shifted to face me, his shoulders squared as if bracing himself. He reached for my hand, then stopped halfway, uncertain if I would accept his touch.

"I need to tell you about where you came from," Dad began. "About who you are and who I am." His eyes, so much like my own, held mine. "I've kept these secrets because I thought I wasprotecting you, but now I see I was wrong. You deserve the truth—all of it."

He glanced at Mom, who gave him an encouraging nod from her position in the armchair.

"I was born inside a cult called Divine Diligence." The same cult that V's mom was sent to. Dad's voice turned distant. "We lived cut off from the world. Leaders controlled everything."

Dad's hands clasped tightly in his lap as he continued. "When I turned seventeen, they chose Valerie for me." Dad's voice splintered on her name. "Neither of us had a choice. Once married, we had to produce a child immediately. We were never in love, we barely knew each other. We were..." his eyes closed, his hands shaking slightly. When he finally continued, his voice was barely above a whisper, "...forced into it. We were monitored and they wouldn't leave until we were done."

My gaze darted between my parents, these familiar strangers, tears burning behind my eyes but refusing to fall. I watched Mom reach across the coffee table to place her hand on Dad's knee, a silent gesture of support. My throat worked as I forced the question out. "What happened to her?"

Dad lifted his eyes to meet mine, the pain in them ancient and raw. "She died." His voice scraped out, rough with an old grief I'd never seen before.

Dad covered my hand with his, holding it firmly as he spoke. I saw V shift his weight slightly, pushing away from the wall to stand more alertly, his entire focus locked on my father's words as he revealed the truth. "You were only four months old when we decided to escape. We knew what happened to children—they were torn away from their families as soon as they were old enough. The fence surrounding the compound was high, they kept us weak so we wouldn't be able to climb." His voice caught. "She handed you to me and I climbed over since I was stronger. She started to..." His eyes glassed over, reliving the memory. Hishand quivered as it covered mine, swallowing hard. "She was shot. Point blank. Right in front of me. She told me to take care of you, and I promised her I always would."

Dad's voice completely broke then, a sound so gut-wrenching it wasn't even a sob—just a gasp trying to push past a hurt that had never healed. He tried to speak again but couldn't form words, his body quaking with the grief he held back for two decades.

Mom rose from her chair and moved to sit on Dad's other side, her arm wrapping around his shoulders.

Dad straightened after a moment and cleared his throat. He rose from the couch, crossing the room to the built-in bookshelf near the fireplace that had been there my entire life. He pulled down an old wooden box I'd never seen before. His back remained to us as he opened it, his shoulders visibly tense. From inside, he withdrew a small, worn notebook, its edges frayed and cover discolored with age. A few dark marks stained the leather binding—permanent reminders of that night.

Dad returned to the couch, settling back into his original spot beside me. "When she knew she was pregnant, Valerie started writing to you. Every chance she got. Just in case..." His fingers shook as he held it out to me. "She was afraid something might happen, that she might never get to tell you herself how much she loved you."

I stared at the journal. My hands trembled as I reached for it, the leather cool and worn against my fingertips. Her fingerprints overlapped with mine across decades—a mother I never knew reaching through time to touch me. Dad watched me take it, his face etched with tension. He swallowed, not looking away from me. "To them, you weren't Oakley. You were 9472."

His eyes clouded with memory. "I was 724," he said quietly. "Not Trevor. Just 724."

I turned toward V, his gaze fixed on mine across the room, empty and unflinching. "6325."

Something clicked into place—the missing pieces of my childhood I'd never questioned before. I turned back to Dad. "That's why I never met your parents."

Dad nodded, his face etched with old hurt. "I was four when they separated me from my parents. I barely remember their faces now." His voice grew hollow. "The cult raised us in groups, taught us that attachment was weakness. Some kids were luckier than others with their caretakers. I wasn't one of the lucky ones."

The weight of inherited suffering washed over me. My father hadn't just saved me from a cult—he'd severed a pattern that had consumed his own childhood, his own parents. He'd risked everything to ensure I wouldn't endure the same fate.

My father—my strong, steady father—had been violated in the worst way possible. And I was the result.

"We named you Oakley because you were born under an oak tree. It was the one beautiful thing we could give you in that place." His hands clenched into fists, knuckles white with the effort of revisiting memories he'd tried to bury. "The moment I held you, this tiny, perfect little thing, none of that mattered anymore. You were everything."

My father's face blurred through my tears as he continued, his voice cracking. "Valerie and I promised each other if something ever happened to one of us, we'd take care of you."

I looked down at our intertwined hands, at the fingers that had wiped away my tears, that had tucked me in at night, that had taught me to ride a bike and tie my shoes. Hands that had carried me as a newborn through fences and across state lines, running from a darkness I never knew existed. My throat closed around the question that had been haunting me since I first learned the truth.

"You could've given me up and had a great life."

Dad's face crumpled, raw hurt flashing across his features. He shifted on the couch to face me fully, his knee bumping mine. For a moment, he looked as young and scared as he must have been back then—just seventeen, alone in the world with a baby and nowhere to go.

"Is that what you think?" Dad leaned forward, his eyes fierce with an intensity that made me shrink back against the couch arm. "That you somehow ruined my life?"

I couldn't meet his gaze. My chest felt like it might cave in, each breath shallow and painful. I stared down at my lap where my fingers twisted together painfully. The truth I'd been running from rose up inside me like bile.

"You were just a kid," I whispered, my voice breaking on every word. "They forced you to—" I couldn't finish. The horror of it stuck in my throat as my voice shattered completely. "And then she died... because of me."

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