The Syndicater (Dark Verse #6)

10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Tristan, Shadow Port

Red hair. Green eyes. Pale skin.

Burned on his retinas.

She is alive.

She is real.

She is found.

The words sank in.

She is alive.

She is real.

She is found.

He couldn't hear anything else.

She is alive.

She is real.

She is found.

There was a buzz in his brain…

She is alive.

She is real.

She is found.

… like he was underwater…

She is alive.

She is real.

She is found.

… but not sinking…

She is alive.

She is real.

She is found.

… just being.

His limbs were slowly numbing…

She is alive.

She is real.

She is found.

… heart erratically thumping…

She is alive.

She is real.

She is found.

… something lodged in his throat…

She is alive.

She is real.

She is found.

… tight, hot, almost choking him, yet…

She is alive.

She is real.

She is found.

… he felt like he was drawing his first breath.

Nine words.

She is alive.

She is real.

She is found.

… repeating, over and over…

She is alive.

She is real.

She is found.

…bouncing around his brain, off the walls of his skull…

She is alive.

She is real.

She is found.

For more than twenty years, he'd dreamed the words.

She is alive.

She is real.

She is found.

For more than twenty years, he'd thought the words.

She is alive.

She is real.

She is found.

For more than twenty years, he'd lived the words.

She is alive.

She is real.

She is found.

Yet, he'd never heard their sound.

They had a sound. A melody of a lifetime spent sustaining a hope, spoken through lips he had kissed countless times.

"Tristan!" the voice, the melody, the sound, shook him from a trance-like state. His gaze focused. Morana was looking at him, waiting for his response. He realized that he'd been standing like stone for a few minutes, long enough to prompt her to physically shake him.

He still stood mute, slightly numb, unable to understand what was happening to him. The words rebounded in his brain, injecting something into his blood, sending it rushing to the organ underneath his ribs, making it pump extra hard, doubling the something back into his veins.

She is alive.

She is real.

She is found.

Someone was shaking his hands.

He looked down.

Nothing was shaking his hands.

They were just shaking in the air.

Why were they shaking?

What was happening to him?

Smaller hands gripped his, stilling the tremors. He raised his eyes up to lock gazes with hazel eyes he had learned like a litany. The look in them was heavy but happy, emotional, a sheen of tears filmed over them, making them appear glossy like the stuff she put over her lips sometimes.

"Tristan."

Just one word. His name. Her eyes. Her hands.

And it crashed into him.

A noise escaped his chest, one he had never heard before, something raw but confused, and Morana stepped up like she always did, wrapping him in his arms like she always did.

He stood motionless, trying to find the words and compute as she hugged him, his own eyes beginning to burn.

She was alive.

She was real.

They had found her.

He crushed her to himself, trying to still his trembling with her body, but it just got worse and worse.

She was alive.

She was real.

They had found her.

Tears escaped his eyes, for the first time in a long time, and her arms tightened around him.

His baby sister.

Finally.