Rushing to my defense, Lucian raised his head and growled, "Do not mislead her about her mother. It isn't right."
My father turned, and their eyes met. Fire against fire. I felt the anger resonate between them. "What have you done? There was an oath between families."
"Regardless of who disobeyed the rules, that oath needed to be broken," he said. "My brother and I were kept in terrible conditions. We were beaten and caged."
"You can't blame me for those abuses. That was not my doing," my father protested.
I sat up from my seat and walked in between them. He wouldn't listen to Lucian, but he might eventually listen to me, his only daughter. "No one said this was your fault. When I brought you up, he defended your character, Dad. Even when he told me about his mother's death, he said it wasn't your wrongdoing. Give him a chance."
My father walked to the front of the RV and slammed his palm against the dash. He wasn't going to hurt Lucian. He was tough, but that wasn't his M.O.
I took another step forward and lowered my voice. "I promise, Dad. This is good. What we have… it's real."
My dad could hardly look at me, but his tone was changing. I was getting through to him. "How am I supposed to say no to my own daughter? Without you, I have nothing."
He turned, and tears fell from his eyes. It might have been the first time since Mom died that I had seen him cry. I ran to him and threw my arms around him. Our relationship was changing, but it was a good thing. It was time for me to lead. "I'm an adult now, Dad. You need to let me make my own decisions."
"It's… difficult for me," he admitted.
I smiled and wiped his tears away. "It's going to be okay. Want to know why? Because I've been taught by the best," I said.
"I think you've taught me more than I've taught you," he said.
Kissing the top of my head, he held me tight before allowing himself to let go. What would happen to us as a family once I grew up wasn't a topic we ever discussed. His lessons were always centered on staying prepared. But once I felt a certain type of love, I felt that I needed to keep it around me. If the world was really coming to an end as he said it would, I needed to have a child to continue the thread of life. Otherwise, what was there to live for?
"So this is it?" he asked. "You're leaving me for good?"
I untied Lucian's ropes, and he rose from the chair, standing behind me. I grabbed the hunting rifle from the wall rack. "You think I'd leave you? You're coming with us."
He looked at the floor, lost in shock. It was as if he had been waiting for this moment for a long time. Somehow, he seemed to know I'd say that. "It's beginning…"
His words shocked me to my core. "What did you just say?"
My father stepped back and looked startled. "Your mother was an incredible woman. The best there ever was," he muttered. "When she was on her deathbed, she told me things. Weird things that seemed impossible to know. She told me this was how it would begin."
"The end of the world," Lucian said.
"Impossible," I said. "No. It can't be true. She couldn't have known."
As I looked at them both, searching for answers to an incredibly complicated puzzle, I felt absolutely lost. The words from her tape echoed inside of my mind. "There's a sanctuary… Eyes on the prize, kiddo," I whispered. "What did Mom mean?"
My father pulled out his old wallet. It was full of pictures I hadn't seen in years, but there was one photograph in particular that he wanted to show me. It was an old image, taken years before I was born. They looked so young, happy, and free.
My mother was wearing her lab coat. The triangle-shaped Onyx Laboratories logo stood out like a sore thumb. Who were they and what did they want with my family?
"What is this?" I asked.
"Look," he said.
He turned the picture over, revealing a small note. It read:
I’ll meet you on the other side of the barrier, critter.
Love, Juliana.
My stomach flurried with both sickness and excitement. Then, the anger overtook me. He had held onto this note for my entire life, and he never thought to show me. "God, none of it makes any sense!" I yelled. "Are you telling me that Mom died for a reason? Because I can't believe it. I won't."
"I don't know why she died," my dad said. "I just know how. I have to wake up every morning and trust that it all served a purpose."