Page 115 of Beautiful Chaos
And because Hopper would cry if they didn’t.
I haven’t yet figured out what Silas would prefer, but I know it’s coming. I can feel it in my bones. I wasn’t joking when I told Hedy that Silas feels like somebody I’ve known for several lifetimes. If I’m lucky, I’ll find him in every lifetime after this one.
We’re already building a life now that we’re both proud of. Our new house is exactly what each of us needs: sunshine and absolute dark.
We have lots of windows topside and a completely dark zone in the small cavern below. Silas is beautiful in the sunshine and devilish in the dark. He’s also stoked that the passage to the dungeon is almost complete.
There’s a man in the kill tank, as he calls it, that he’s been wanting to murder forweeks. Sometimes he’ll tell me what the people in the dungeon have done, but this one’s another one he and Hedy have refused to tell me about.
Given what I do know, I don’t mind when they keep those details to themselves.
As for the fallout from Blake’s attack, it’s ongoing. Once Jake had his phone, finding the lab where he’d been raised was dead simple.
Simple, but not easy.
I was watching the body cams when they went in, and it was awful. Some of the horror came from the eerie parallels with Wimberley, including holding cells and a well-used incinerator.
From the scientists’ notes, their progress, while slower than Silas’s, was eventually more successful. Depending, that is, on what you consider a success. Their surrogates had given birth to five kids: three boys and two girls. The children seemed to do well until they hit about twelve or thirteen.
From what we can tell, they picked off the scientists, one by one, then started going after each other. Blake was the last one standing and had been on his own since he was fifteen.
In the end, I felt more sadness than anything else for him. He figured out how to find Silas but didn’t know how to be anything but a killing machine.
We now know what to look for in these types of labs, and I’m confident we’ll begin to see better results if we ever find a lab like that again.
After he got home from that operation, Silas and I stayed in bed with Cupcake for an entire day. Then we kicked her out of the bedroom and made good use of the swing.
Speaking of,I should probably make sure that none of our toys are out for the card game tonight.
SILAS
I didn’t realize life could be this good. If you had told five-year-old me that I would be living with the love of my life, doing meaningful work, directing my anger and rage into good, he would’ve never believed you. Honestly, even a year ago, if you had told me that tonight I’d be going to Thane and Ronan’s house to have dinner with our two families, I would have called you a liar.
And now, I can’t think of anything more fun.
One of my favorite surprises from my relationship with Oakley is my new friendship with Amelia. Oak made sure to tell me that Melia was relentless in the early days, insisting that he and I made for a good match. She definitely softened the ground for the fathers, even when things looked really, really bleak.
Even better, last month, she moved back from Mexico to direct her charity here in Austin. She, Maya, and our cousin Dexter now live in the penthouse.
As important as my friendship with Amelia is, the relationship I am carefully building with Ronan and Thane is even more critical. We have completely bonded over the horses at my dads’ ranch. My dads have also brought Thane in on their search-and-rescue work, and it’s cool to see them getting along.
Tonight, Thane is grilling steaks, and Amelia already warned him that I might bring the hot sauce.
When Oakley and I roll up to their house, I can’t help but smile.
Thane’s mid-century modern aesthetic definitely influenced our own house. I love that Oakley was raised in such a beautiful spot. It’s not the biggest house in the neighborhood, but it’s clearly full of love. We’ve spent several weekends in the cove below with Oak’s family, floating on the lake, trading stories. Tonight, we’ll be having dinner on the deck to the side of the house, just in time for one of the area’s perfect sunset views.
We walk in, and I set the hot sauce on the counter. Amelia takes one look and laughs at me, then makes her way from the kitchen to give me a hug. I haven’t always been the biggest hugger, but I don’t mind it so much now.
“Ready to get your ass handed to you at the card game this week?” she asks, elbowing me in my ribs.
“No,” I say with a pout. Hedy said Melia could join our card game nights, and we all regret that decision. She’s a card shark and a half.
“I can’t help it that people keep losing bets around me,” she says, sending Oakley a shit-eating grin.
He flips her the bird. “Yes. Yes. I’m in love with Silas. You were right.” He smiles and grabs a five-dollar bill from his wallet, sliding it across the counter to her. “Did I ever thank you for nudging me in that direction?”
Melia cackles as she snatches the bill. “Told ya.”
