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“Know what?” she retorts. “Sawyer, what the hell?”

“Crap. Emma.” He staggers back, stabbing a hand into his hair. “But—but she looked like you. She talked like you. Absolutely everything about her…was you.”

“Wh-What?” Emma gasps. “Her who?”

“Shit,” Foley spews. “Oh, holy fucking—”

Emma shoves him to the side and stumbles toward the bunker. “What’s going on?” she demands. “Is Lydia all right? Are the kids?”

“The kids.” Foley’s repetition is the softest grate I’ve ever heard from him before—unleashing a thousand decibels of sensation through every cell I possess. And none of them are good. “The…kids.”

He says nothing else before jerking his stare up at me. His face is claimed by such an intense twist of agony, I already know what he’s going to say. And am already tempted to vomit.

“The kids…are gone.”

No time for hurling. Sheer instinct takes over, and I rush to seize Emma by the elbow. I catch her right before she races down the entrance, my senses validating Foley’s horrific truth. The energy I always feel when getting near my children…is gone. Chasing her down the steps is only going to torture us deeper with that truth.

Nothing.

There’s nothing here. Not even a lingering warmth of their happiness.

I have a feeling we’re about to hear the explanation behind that too.

I wheel back on Foley, knowing my eyes alone are about to erupt with real lightning spears. “What. The. Fuck?”

The guy looks ready to tear open his shirt and beg me to impale him with ten thousand volts. “You—I mean she—Emma—” He chokes to a stop, meeting Emma’s horror-stricken stare. “It was you, Emma,” he pushes on. “I swear to God, it was you.”

Emma is back in front of him in three seconds. She grabs the front of his blood-spattered T-shirt. “Stop stammering and start talking.”

Foley frantically nods. It’s not in fear; I can tell that. The guy is drawing strength from my woman’s anger. Battling to use it, to gun his own. “Jesus Christ.” But even the formidable Foley is struck low by his mortified anguish. “I should’ve trusted him,” he grates.

“Trusted who?” Emma’s voice pitches high from controlling her exasperation.

“He—he knew,” the guy blurts instead. “Fuck…he knew.”

“Goddamnit, Sawyer!” Emma twists his shirt so tightly, smoke starts curling from the wet cotton. “Who knew what?”

“Lux,” he finally stammers. “He ran from you—I mean her—or it. Lux.” He forces harsh breaths up and down his throat, clearly ordering himself to remember as much as possible. “He ran. He said it wasn’t you, and I didn’t believe him—and then you—she—clipped me, and I was out. She took us both out. ’Dia and I. But it wasn’t you. Fuck. It wasn’t you.”

“As we already know,” she spits back.

“Then who—”

“Holy fuck.” As it spews out of me, so does the strength in my legs. They crumple beneath me, and I’m down in two seconds, my hands trembling against my thighs, my stomach sending up a new ocean of bile. The shit burns as I choke it back down. I’m not so lucky with the despair claiming my senses. It spins me ruthlessly, subjecting me to every disgusting detail of one specific flashback.

A recall of the day that was supposed to be everything—and ended up changing everything.

The uninvited wedding reception guest. A stranger at first until her regal rise gave her away—even before she peeled back her morphed façade, exposing us to her true identity.

Her morphed façade.

“Holy fuck,” I repeat.

“R-R-Reece?” Emma rasps, hurling Foley away and grabbing me by the forearms. “What is it?”

“She morphed,” I finally grit out. “It…it was her, Emma. Her. And she—Christ.”

“Oh God.” Her sob is shaky and mournful. “Oh God.”