All Chapters of Icing The Heart: Chapter 91 - Chapter 100

Jaxon’s voice broke just then as he asked, “Why did my father marry her?”Sarah closed her eyes.The woman looked at Jaxon.“Because I asked them to.”Silence.Jaxon laughed.“You asked my biological father to marry your friend?”“She wasn’t my friend.”“What was she?”“My sister.”Cruz moved.“No.”The woman looked at her.Cruz’s weapon shook.“You said she was my aunt.”“She was.”“And your sister.”“Yes.”Cruz stared.The woman continued.“Rebecca Mercer had two daughters.”Cruz’s face went white.“Evelyn.”“Yes.”“And you.”“Yes.”Cruz whispered, “Then you’re my aunt too.”The woman’s eyes filled.“Yes.”Nobody moved.Jaxon looked at Cruz.Cruz looked at Jaxon.I watched the exact second both of them realised what that meant.Family.Not siblings.Not anything close enough to create the horror Robert had tried to manufacture earlier.But family.Connected long before either remembered.Cruz lowered the weapon slightly.“What was your name?”The woman looked at her.“Before Evelyn?

I grabbed the radio.“Rory, do not move.”She laughed once.“That instruction has a terrible success rate.”“I’m serious.”“So am I.”“Stay with Jaxon.”“I am.”“Do not come downstairs.”“We’re already downstairs.”I closed my eyes.“Right.”Jaxon said, “We’re coming to you.”“No.”“You said the house isn’t the target.”“It isn’t.”“Then we move.”“Jaxon—”“We are not staying inside a dead control room while Voss moves people around us.”He was right.Annoying.But right.“Fine. Use the shaft.”Rory said, “I am not climbing down that ladder.”Jaxon immediately said, “You’re not.”Silence.I almost laughed.Then Rory said, very slowly, “Would you like to try that again?”“Rory.”“I am pregnant, not decorative.”“You are not climbing down a fifteen-foot maintenance shaft.”“You don’t decide—”“This is not philosophical. This is gravity.”I looked at Bennett.She looked at me.For the first time all night, we agreed without speaking.Some arguments belonged to other people.Mara walked t

Mara stared at me.Then Evelyn said quietly, “Yes.”Amelia.The generated memory.No.That had been wrong.Or incomplete.The person behind the door had not always been Amelia.Maybe I had read to more than one child.Maybe Richard had.Maybe both.Memories didn’t have to belong to one person.That was the trap.“Why did he call me brother?”Evelyn hesitated.Evan answered from somewhere near her.“Because you did first.”I stared at the wall.“What?”“You called me your brother.”“I was eight.”“Yes.”“That doesn’t make us brothers.”“It did to you.”His voice cracked slightly.“You were very annoying about it.”Something shifted in my chest.The rink.The bleachers.The coin.Evan.Older.Not Kane.Not blood.A boy the programme had locked away.A boy I had apparently decided belonged to me anyway.Choice.Again.Always choice.“What did I call you?”“Ev.”The memory hit hard.A library door.My hand pushing a book through the gap.A boy on the other side.You can keep it.I don’t w

The man standing across the room had my father’s face and none of the years he should have spent becoming older.That was the first problem.The second was that I remembered burying him.Maybe not literally.I had been young enough that most of the funeral existed in pieces now. Black clothes. Adults lowering their voices whenever I entered a room. Someone holding my hand too tightly. Flowers I hated because their smell followed me home. Clara gone too. Daniel gone too. Everyone telling me that grief became easier if you gave it time, which had always seemed like a cruel thing to tell a child whose entire understanding of home had disappeared in one night.But I remembered photographs.Daniel laughing.Daniel carrying me on his shoulders.Daniel asleep on the sofa while Clara complained that he snored.Daniel teaching me how to tie my shoes and eventually giving up because apparently I had been determined to invent my own method.Daniel.My father.Except the man standing in front of

Daniel went still.There.Another lie.“She said that?”“Yes.”“When?”“Tonight.”His face hardened.“Then Sarah is lying.”My stomach dropped.“Why?”“I don’t know.”“Try.”“She loved Clara.”“Everyone loved Clara.”“No.”His voice softened.“Sarah loved Clara.”Oh.I stared.Daniel looked away.“You mean—”“Yes.”Silence.“Did Clara—”“No.”His answer was immediate.“Clara loved Sarah, but not in the same way.”I absorbed that.It explained something.Maybe.Or maybe it only created another room.“Sarah took me after the crash.”“Yes.”“Then?”“She disappeared.”“With me?”“Yes.”“For a year?”“Almost.”“And then?”“You appeared under a different name.”My skin prickled.“What name?”He looked at me.“Rory Hale.”Silence.My name.The name I had believed was mine.“What was my name before?”Daniel’s face changed.“Rory.”“Surname.”He didn’t answer.“Daniel.”“You didn’t have one.”I stared.“That is ridiculous.”“No.”“I had a birth certificate.”“Created later.”“By Clara?”“Yes.”