Chapter 1
“Does any of this feel familiar to you?” Maria asked, her face clearer than Ver's dreams yet much more foreign. She can see the quiet desperation in both their faces as they watch her. Desperate for answers, she can't give.
“No. Not really.” Vers admits hating the way Pete's face falls. Maria at least looks less crestfallen. She desperately wants answers and wants to fix whatever this is. Never wants to see the devastation on Pete's face again.
“I mean, for a moment when I saw your son, he seemed familiar, but otherwise, no.” She kicks herself immediately for saying that. That flash she'd had at seeing the boy's face, the fondness, the longing, was hers and hers alone.
Pete's gaze snaps to her, and Maria stiffens. “He's not my son,” Pete says very softly but firm as steel.
“Oh.” Vers murmurs. She should apologize; people apologize for things like that, right?
But Pete isn't finished. He takes a halting step toward the table she and Maria are sitting at, looking like he is debating with himself, before his gaze goes past them out the window, where Bradley and Monica play by the tree.
“He's not my son,” Pete whispers before letting his gaze fall from the children and pinning her to her seat. “He's yours.”
She's falling again, plummeting away from the ship. She's upside down, her mind scrambled. She's running, running, running, and burning, burning, burning. “What?”