Read Creators for Free Online

movement—”
    “But I saw two chosen ones take you! Are you telling me they were part of it, too? That it was all an act?” I couldn’t help myself. I was exhausted, every muscle in my body tight and wound up, and I was scared. Scared that we would never make it out of these woods. Scared that we would , and they wouldn’t let us back into the community.
    “I will tell you all that in time, I promise. What you need to know right now is why I did it.”
    I swallowed down the lump in my throat. “And why did you do it?” I managed.
    “To save this world. To save it for you, and Emma, and Louisa. I am so close, Tess, to ending all of this. To bringing the council down.” I opened my mouth to argue but my father held up his hand. “I know you will always see my leaving as a betrayal, but I had no other options. If I had stayed, I would have ended up in that compound. And there, I wouldn’t have been able to do a damn thing. I would’ve had to live with the knowledge that they would destroy my family, take my eldest daughter from me and force her into servitude, make the women in my family hate everything about themselves that made them beautiful, and I couldn’t do a thing about it. So I left. I left everything I loved. I became this man you look at with hatred. I became him to give you a better world.”
    “You could have been there. Did you ever think of that?” I said, unable to keep quiet any longer. “Maybe I didn’t want a father who saved the whole world—maybe I wanted a father who saved mine.”
    “I wouldn’t watch them destroy you. I couldn’t,” he said, his voice edged with some deeply buried emotion. Raw. Wild. “So, I left, and I am so close to ending it all.” He took two giant steps toward me, grabbing onto my arms. “I need you to give me time. Listen to what I say. Follow my orders without question—”
    “I’m your daughter, not one of your soldiers,” I spat out.
    “Did you see those things that attacked us? Did you really look at them? The council doesn’t give a damn about us anymore. They want all of us naturals dead. Those things were created to search the woods for survivors. To eat us alive. If we sit back, we are asking for extinction, and I want you to survive, Tessie. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”
    My father took a deep breath and reached a trembling hand into his pocket. He pulled out a folded piece of paper. Tattered and worn, it looked close to falling apart. “I’m only asking for you to trust me for a little while. Just till the end,” he continued as he unfolded the paper. “And when the world is once again as it should be, you can go back to hating me. I knew it was a possibility the moment I left, but it was a sacrifice I was willing to make.”
    I opened my mouth and closed it. I had heard these sentiments before. I had heard them from Henry, a boy hell-bent on doing whatever he had to do to bring down the council. And hadn’t I given him a second chance? My father reached forward and took my hand, placing the piece of paper in it.
    It was sheet music. It was our song. The very first song I ever learned to play. The song my father taught me. The song that led me to James. He had kept it this whole time. I couldn’t stop the tear that rolled down my cheek, and for once, I didn’t want to.
    “There’s one more thing, child.”
    I cleared my throat and handed the sheet music back to him, but he simply smiled, refusing to take it.
    “About this boy you love…”
    “James,” I breathed, my hand clutching onto the song that defined the most important moments of my life. His curly, wild black hair. His endlessly deep mismatched eyes. The scar on his chin that was the most perfect imperfection I had ever seen.
    The boy I loved.
    “Would you like to talk to him?”

Chapter 5
    I pulled on Louisa’s hand so she stood right next to me. Lockwood moved to the other side of her. “Al will be pissed. He’s not just going to let us return, not without