Page 39 of Dominion

I remembered the day they took me away from them. The day when a fire swallowed the house we used to live in.

I remembered my mother’s cries, the loud, thundering echo of a teenage boy screaming through the forest, as Judah took me away, yelling out my name, his heart breaking through every new wail.

I remembered silence, and the smell of leather seats, and a man I never saw before. I remembered Dylan, his blue eyes,as I stood on the porch of what would become my house. The sadness in him, the pain lacing his skin.

I remembered it all.

“I’m sorry I didn’t come earlier, my little butterfly.” He spoke softly into my hair, while my entire body shook, the onslaught of those times I forgot at the forefront of my mind. “I am so sorry.”

There were always these holes in my memories. The space where I knew something should’ve been, but I could never quite grasp it. My friends would say they remembered things from the time when they were three, four, or five years old, but I couldn’t remember shit.

“Why didn’t I remember before?” I asked in a whisper, trying to make sense of it all.

“I don’t know,” he said, his arms tightening around my frame. “But it doesn’t matter. I’ve waited long enough to come back and take you home, but I can’t wait anymore, Sky. I can’t stand on the side and watch while that idiot destroys everything in his path.”

I barely registered his words when another voice, a much angrier voice, boomed behind us, scaring the hell out of me.

“She’s not going anywhere with you!” It was Ash, my perfect, angry Ash, who was now standing behind me, his hand on my lower back, as if he was reminding me where I belonged. And it wasn’t with Casimir. It was with him and Dylan.

But as I moved away from Casimir, as I looked at the two men I loved, my heart broke once again at the sight of the uncertainty in their eyes. Dylan looked as if I’d punched him in the face, and Ash… Ash was shaking, trying to subdue his anger, but the fear was what had me stepping closer to him. The fear that was slithering over his face, and I knew where it came from.

He thought he would lose me.

He thought I would really go with Casimir, leaving them behind.

“Ash,” I murmured, pressing my hands to his chest. “I’m not going anywhere.”

In a millisecond, his arms were wrapped tightly around me, pulling me away from Casimir and closer to Dylan who was still sitting on the couch, only now he was looking at us. “I’m not losing you,” Ash mumbled, trembling from head to toe. “I can’t lose you, Moonshine.”

“You’re not losing me.”

“He can’t take you.”

A throat cleared from somewhere behind me, but I didn’t pay it any attention. Ash was terrified. I looked up at his face and pressed my lips to the base of his throat. “Ash,” I crooned. “I won’t leave. And even if I do, I wouldn’t leave you behind.”

“He’s part of the Order. He… You know how they function.”

“I’m not part of the Order,” Casimir piped in. “Well,” he chuckled, “I’m not part of that Order.”

I could feel the frown on my face the moment it appeared, and as I turned around slowly in Ash’s arms, I looked at Casimir. His hands were in his front pockets, his posture somewhat subdued. The energy he oozed tamed only enough for the rest of the people in the room to relax around him.

“Then what Order are you a part of?”

Casimir sat down, crossing one leg over the other, and holding his hands in his lap. “I’m part of the real Order, Skylar. The one that wants Judah dead as much as you all do. The one that kicked the Blackwood family out a long time ago, only for them to create this monstrosity. Judah’s great-great-great-grandfather fucked up, but Judah is the one we want. It’s time to finally put a stop to this insanity he’s been spreading around.”

“What are you talking about?” Dylan was the one to ask, finally joining the conversation.

“I’m talking about the fact that your family, Dylan, created a new branch of the Order, centered only in Winworth, so thatthey could control the people. But you already knew that, didn’t you?”

Dylan’s eyes were wide with fear, his hands shaking while he looked at Casimir, but it was there, written on his face—he knew.

“You knew about this?” I asked him, my voice trembling. “How?”

“My mother told me,” he hissed. “But I didn’t have proof. I didn’t know if she was lying or if she was really telling the truth. I wanted to figure it out for myself.”

“And you also knew that the Union your father blessed would never stand,” Casimir added, looking at Dylan with something akin to disgust. “You wanted to keep her to yourself.”

“No.” Dylan shook his head, his eyes pleading with me. “I didn’t want to lose you, Little One. They would’ve taken you away from me. They would’ve?—”

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