4338.207 · July 26, 2018 AD
The Throat They Wanted
The lies are collapsing faster than Luke can rebuild them. Joel is breathing when he shouldn't be. Jamie is asking questions Luke can't answer. And Paul—who watched a dead man's hand seize his arm with impossible strength—deserves more than silence. So Luke stops walking toward the Portal and turns to his brother. What he says changes everything. What he suspects is worse.
The day has already broken them both in different ways. Paul watched a corpse grab his arm with impossible strength. Luke watched every lie he'd constructed crumble in the space between Jamie's scream and Joel's first impossible breath. Now Luke needs answers—needs Cody, needs to understand how a dead boy ended up alive in a Clivilius river—and Paul deserves to know at least part of why.
What the hell is a Guardian?
The question opens a door Luke has kept locked since childhood. He doesn't have complete answers—doesn't fully understand himself what the Portal Key means or why Clivilius chose him. But he can offer Paul this much: he's not alone. There are others.
And there's something darker. Whoever slit Joel's throat may have thought they were killing Luke instead.
Don't get yourself killed, Paul says as Luke steps toward the Portal. We still need you.
