Page 38 of The Inheritance
“Is there room for me and the kids in this new life on your terms?”
“No.”
The word lashed me.
“We’ve been together ten years. If you don’t want to be married, that’s fine, but you don’t get to just quit being a father. The kids have known you their entire lives. They won’t understand, Roger. They need you. I need you.”
“It’s not about you or them. This is about me. I need something else.”
“Tia loves you. Noah adores you. That little boy can’t wait for you to come home. Every day he does a little dance when he sees your car in the driveway. You know what Tia told me while we were waiting for you? She said, ‘Don’t worry Mom, Dad will kill all the monsters.’”
Roger shook his head. “I can’t. I can’t kill any monsters. I didn’t save anyone. I just froze. And I’m not going to spend the rest of my life feeling like a coward.”
“So, you’re just going to abandon us? To whatever happens?”
A hint of something cold and vicious twisted his face. “I have a right to be happy. For however long I have left. I’m going to grab my happiness and hold on to it while I still can. This is done. We are done.”
“What am I supposed to tell the kids?”
“Whatever you want.”
He got up and went inside.
“And now you know how my marriage ended, Bear. I’ve had a decade to think about it. I understand it better now. I was able to drive away from the slaughter. I escaped. He couldn’t. He just sat in that car stuck and waiting to die, and it must’ve occurred to him that he was doing that exact same thing in his life. He must’ve realized something about himself that neither he nor I knew until that moment.”
I stroked Bear’s fur.
“He’s down in Puerto Rico. He owns a boat and takes tourists out to the reefs to snorkel with manta rays. He is exactly where he wants to be. And until today, I was where I wanted to be. I manifested as a Talent three years after that first gate break. Yes, I got this job for benefits and pay, because I have bills and kids, but there are other ways to earn money. I do it because every time I find adamantite or aetherium, it makes us a little stronger. It gives us a better fighting chance to repel this invasion, and I will keep finding this shit until all the breaches are broken and all the gates are closed, so my children can have a safe, boring future.”
I realized that I was snarling and took a deep breath.
“I don’t blame Roger for the divorce. I blame him for being a shit father. I’ve tried, Bear. I’ve sent emails, I texted, I offered phone calls. He didn’t respond. The only communication from him was through the child support payments. That’s how I knew he was still alive.”
Another shudder twisted me.
“He works as little as possible, so he makes just enough to survive and maintain the boat. At first he was sending two hundred dollars a month, then a hundred, then he stopped. I kept offering to send the kids to visit him or inviting him to visit us, and he cut that off. He said he didn’t want to see them. I finally had enough and had my lawyer email him an affidavit to relinquish his parental rights. I thought it would shock him into having a relationship with our kids. It came back as a scan in twenty-four hours, attached to a blank email, signed, notarized and witnessed by two people. He wanted to get rid of Tia and Noah that much.”
I gritted my teeth.
“I didn’t tell the kids, but I have the Death Folder with insurance, and the will, and all that crap. It’s backed up on my laptop. The children know about it, and that affidavit is in there, with his fucking signature on it. Once my death is announced, they will learn that their father doesn’t want them. My children will think they don’t have anyone left in this world. People break promises all the time. Roger promised to love me. Melissa promised to be my friend. London promised to protect me.
“Promises must be kept, Bear. Especially to children. I promised Tia I wouldn’t die in this hellhole and I meant it. We are going to survive. We will get out of here if I have to crawl on my hands and knees all the way to that damn gate.”
Drishya Chandran blinked her big brown eyes. On paper, she was twenty-one. To Elias, she looked about fifteen at most.
It’s not that the kids are getting younger; it’s that I’m getting older.
“I’m sorry,” Drishya said. “I honestly didn’t see anything.”
They had settled Tia and Noah into one of the HQ apartments. The guild headquarters took up an entire office tower in Schaumburg. Twelve floors of offices, meeting rooms, apartments, R&D labs, sitting in the middle of a twenty-five-acre greenbelt space. The building had a clinic with an emergency room, two restaurants, a gate diver-rated gym, a movie theater, an arcade, a park, and a roof garden. It was a village onto itself, and he’d assigned Haze to look over the children. All of their needs would be met, and Haze would unobtrusively chaperon them if they chose to wander. Elias had called ahead, and when the kids arrived, their apartment featured a brand-new cat tree and a robotic litter box. Mellow hated both, hissed at him again, and hid under the bed instead. He wasn’t very fond of cats, and the feeling was clearly mutual.
After the kids were settled, Leo and he turned around and went to Elmwood, where he’d commandeered the Elmwood Public Library as their makeshift office. Guild policy dictated that in case of a fatal event wiping out the assault crew, the gate had to be secured at all times, and he intended to sit on it until they accumulated enough divers to go in.
Through the glass window of the conference room Elias could see the gate looming like a dark hungry mouth, bathed in the glow of the floodlights. No matter how many lives they threw into it, it would never be enough. It was past one in the morning, and he was out of coffee.
“Walk me through it one more time,” he said.
“The drill head jammed,” Drishya said. “I showed it to Melissa. She said to go get the new one from the cart in the tunnel. I went to get it. The next thing I know Wagner is running out of the tunnel, and Melissa is behind him, and her face doesn’t look right. I’m like okay, I guess we are doing that now, so I turned around and ran to the gate. I heard an explosion behind us, so I didn’t look back. I didn’t even know London made it until I was out.”
