"Yes." He nodded.
Harrison indicated for me to sit down in the seat across from him. I sank down in it.
Flynn looked just as perplexed. He refused to sit. Instead, he remained standing beside me, folding his arms as he waited for an explanation.
"How did you know?" Flynn questioned.
Harrison remained silent, watching me as he sat down behind a wooden desk.
"Why?" I asked. He knew I was referring to when he had helped me escape.
He let out a deep sigh.
"When I first met you, there was something about you that seemed so familiar, but it wasn't possible. You were human. But when I discovered you weren't, I knew."
Knew what? I was on the edge of my seat.
"You're my daughter."
His daughter? I recoiled and stood up, needing to put space between us.
"How's that possible?" Flynn asked, looking between Harrison and me like he was looking for physical traits that would tie us together.
"I met her mother out on a patrol once. I knew the dangers but there was something about her I couldn't resist."
I stopped. "But you're supposed to be dead." I remembered the story that both my parents had died and that was why I had been adopted. Had it been a story that Claire had concocted to shield me from the truth?
His eyes softened. "It was a story that was meant to protect you."
"You gave me up," I murmured, feeling hurt.
If he'd lied about his death, could the rest be a lie as well?
"My mother?" I asked, unable to keep the hope out of my voice.
The sadness in his eyes answered my question before he shook his head. I had never met her but I felt a renewed sense of loss. Feeling shocked and struggling to process what I had been told, I sat down.
"I'm sorry you had to find out like this," he said gently.
"Were you ever planning on telling me?" The thought was ludicrous.
"I had hoped that one day it would happen."
It was hard to comprehend this Keeper, who was still practically a stranger, was the father I had believed was murdered along with my mother after I had been born.
"What happened?" I asked, ignoring the other silent Keeper in the room.
Now that I had the chance, I needed to know what had happened to my mother.
"We were young and careless, not believing that something so beautiful could be seen as anything other than that. We were naive." I leaned closer. "She got pregnant. I knew that a child born from us would only find death, it was only a matter of time. A secret like that could not be held forever. I tried to get her to terminate the pregnancy but she refused. Even before you were born she loved you...so much."
The thought that she had fought so hard for my existence filled my heart with love for a mother I had never known.
Movement beside me pulled my gaze to the restless Keeper who was looking at my father like he was a traitor.
"After she had you, she realized the severity of our situation. If the Keepers found out you existed, they would kill you without a second thought. If I left the order, it would have raised suspicions."
I understood his reasons but it didn't fill the hollow feeling inside my chest that had craved the love of my birth parents.
