Totoka River You are exactly what I want: kinda cool and kinda not

No, Everett’s voice strained under the spark of his sister’s anger. Lightning cracked, sizzled, contained within his still healing shell. He was the storm, and the tempest threatened a downpour. It rose instead as a stinging in his eyes. The corners of his vision blurred, you’re my sister, I never wanted you gone. If you had listened you would have known that. I wept for you when you left me. I’ve prayed to see you again.

And here you are.

He would not leave her again.

Lestan explained himself, in words of killing, drowning! And his words conflicted, shifted, changed at every turn. Did he want them? Did he not? Reverie, Reverie, Reverie. And then he saw, and understood: their obsession for each other, even as Lestan spoke of leaving her.

Again.

An ultimatum, between her husband and these children who had done nothing but breathe the life God had given them, the life He still gave them now.

You are a cruel man, Everett said as he pulled his eyes away from the pups and to Lestan, as the pieces clicked in placed, for you to threaten to leave her, or to make her watch these children die.

If he had wanted then gone, he should have drowned them at sea. Now, the guilt would come crashing down on Reverie’s head — or the spiralling sorrow of losing Lestan forever.