Emmaline made her way back to the hospital room. Mom was exactly where she’d been when Em had left, sitting next to Dad with the chair pulled up close to the bed. She was holding his hand and staring into the distance like she was far away and not even in the room. The monitors hooked to Dad beeped slowly and steadily, so at least nothing else seemed to have gone off the deep end while she had been away. That was something.

  She took a seat beside Mom, handing her the bottle of water and protein bar. Mom didn’t respond.

  “Mom,” Emmaline urged as she kept holding out the water and bar.

  Her mother blinked and looked down at the offerings. She slowly reached for them, but set them down on the floor next to her chair and resumed holding Dad’s hand.

  “Anything from Doc Williams?” Emmaline asked.

  “Nothing yet. He said he’d call,” Mom replied absentmindedly.

  Emmaline looked around and didn’t see Mom’s phone anywhere.

  “So where’s your phone?” Em hadn’t seen it since they’d left the townhouse. Had Mom left it behind? Or was it stashed in her purse and just turned off? Because she certainly hadn’t heard it ringing, and it definitely should have been ringing with all the people who were probably wondering where they were.

  Em had resorted to turning her phone off too after she’d shown Doc Williams Michael’s text. There were too many unanswered texts and calls, and she had no clue what to tell anyone. Besides, since Michael had sent that text about Dad and then Helen the video of Michael being taken away, Emmaline was almost afraid to pick up the phone to find some other terrible tragedy had occurred.

  “I told him to call the hospital room.”

  “Oh.”

  Emmaline sat there for a long moment listening to the steady beeping of the machine and the sound of people out in the hallway walking past, wondering if she should ask the question that had been on her mind since the incident in the cafeteria. After a few heartbeats, Em decided she had to know one way or another, because the not knowing was excruciating.

  “Mom, Michael will come back, won’t he?” Emmaline asked so quietly she wasn’t sure Mom heard her.

  In fact, Mom just sat there like a statue, a stone unmoving. There was no emotion, no sound, no movement of any kind. Just utter stillness. Emmaline realized maybe she preferred the crying Mom to this one. It was a little scary. Em took a breath to ask her question again, this time a little louder, certain her mom simply hadn’t heard her.

  “I don’t know if he will come back,” Mom said before Emmaline could speak. “But I suspect he won’t.” Her mother paused for a breath, and then continued. “Let me rephrase that. I highly suspect his father won’t let him come back.”

  There was raw anger in her voice there at the end. It shocked Em. Mom had never been one with much malice for anyone. She was a live and let live kind of person, except when it came to telling Emmaline what to do, of course. But there was no mistaking her mother’s venomous tone.

  “Why not?” Emmaline asked in the cold silence after her mother had finished speaking.

  “Because Ghar always had to have things his way. He was convinced he was always right, and I suppose in many ways he was. His Perception Dome-ni gave him an edge that most others don’t have, but it’s also made him extremely arrogant, and unwilling to see things from other people’s points of view. It was part of why your father and I had to take Michael away. Ghar would not give Michael the things he needed to thrive, and that included allowing your father to be Michael’s Protector.”

  Emmaline had opened her mouth to ask why the Emperor wouldn’t let her dad protect her brother. From what Mom had already revealed, Em inferred that it had been Dad’s job before he’d come to Earth. But Mom continued to speak. So Em closed her mouth and listened intently.

  “Ghar won’t let Michael come back, because he loves being in control too much. He wouldn’t want Michael to lose focus on what he wants him to do, which as far as I know, is to be his successor. We’ve been gone from Ethia for a long time, so things could have changed since then, but I doubt it. That ship wouldn’t have shown up if Ghar had found another Heir he preferred over Michael.”

  Emmaline pondered that for a moment. She wasn’t sure she liked this Emperor very much. He didn’t seem like a very nice person. She wondered what Michael’s reaction to him would be. She didn’t think it would be a very happy family reunion, and that saddened her. Why couldn’t the Emperor just let Michael be? Didn’t her brother get to have a choice in what he did and where he went?

  “But what if Michael doesn’t want to do what the Emperor wants?”

  A sadness that matched Emmaline’s crossed her mother’s face. “I’m afraid he won’t have much of a choice. Ghar will find a way to get what he wants from Michael. He’s good at getting what he wants.”

  Her mother was quiet for a long time, and Emmaline was sure she was stuck in her own thoughts of the past. Most likely, her time in Ethia. Em had to admit that she was curious. What was it like in this other place? The place that she was from, but had never visited. She had been born on Earth after all.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  “Well, it seems to me that if the Emperor wants Michael to be his successor that eventually Michael will be the one in charge. Maybe he will come back then?” Emmaline said certain that her words were true as she spoke them.

  In fact. In that moment, Emmaline had a sudden burst of clarity that caused the dark clouds in her heart to scatter and, for the first time since this mess had started, Emmaline felt a brilliant lightness that chased her sorrow at losing Michael away.

  Emmaline didn’t know how or when, but her brother would come back to them. She knew Michael. For now, he might not have much of a say in how his life went, but she was certain he’d find a way to change that. Maybe it would take time, but she knew. Yes, she knew he’d come back someday. He wouldn’t forget them, and he definitely wouldn’t let some big bully keep him away from his family forever.

  Mom smiled, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes. “I hope you’re right.”

  A stab of sadness ripped right through Emmaline’s momentary feeling of euphoria. Did not Mom believe in Michael like she did? Or maybe Mom knew more than what she was saying? Em suspected it was the latter. That bothered her, but she decided she had to believe that Michael would come back, because the alternative was too hard to consider.

  But even when he did come back, it could be a very long time from now. That part really sucked. Like big time. But there was nothing she could do about it. Michael was gone. She knew he was gone because the blonde nurse had said the ship had left Earth. That Ethian ship was now spiriting her brother far away to another place that in another lifetime would have been her home too. Part of her was a little jealous that Michael got to visit and live in a whole new galaxy, at least new to her.

  “Mom, do you ever think I’d get to go to Ethia?”

  Her mother got a panicked look on her face, and she shook her head. “Trust me. You don’t want to go there. It would be bad for you.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Because you’re not only my daughter, but Aragon Remeer’s. Ghar would have branded him a traitor of the Empire and possibly me as well, which would reflect on you. It is better for you to be here.”

  “Oh,” Emmaline said quietly. She didn’t like the sound of that, not at all. Not only that her parents were considered traitors there, but that she could never go to Ethia herself. And her very brief fantasy of maybe visiting that far-off galaxy someday in the future was completely dashed.

  “It’s been hours since they took him. I suppose he really is gone, isn’t he?” Mom muttered under her breath.

  She didn’t know. Of course not, because Emmaline hadn’t said anything about what she overheard in the cafeteria when she got back. Em silently chided herself and then proceeded to tell her mother what the blonde nurse had said.

  “Well, I suppose it's good news that they didn’t try to stick around to find the rest of us,” Mom replied in a tone that said she was far from thrilled.

  “So does that mean we don’t have to go back to that cabin in the woods?” Em asked hopefully. She had barely stepped foot in that place, but she knew she wouldn’t have liked staying there. It wasn’t home, and it didn’t look like the kind of place that had the things she was used to, or the ability to hang out with friends, which she supposed was kind of the point.

  “I don’t know. I suppose it depends on how things go,” but Mom didn’t elaborate on what she meant about how things would go. Did she mean to go with Dad? Or go with people possibly finding out about the Layton family secret?

  Emmaline sat there for a long moment with thoughts racing through her mind. Would their family secret come out now that the world knew that aliens really existed? If not, then how would they keep Michael’s disappearance a secret? Could they even keep that a secret? There was a video out there of him being beamed up into a freaking alien ship, for crying out loud. What would they tell all their friends? For that matter, what would they tell Eric?

  She remembered seeing his texts and calls on her phone before she’d turned it off. She felt bad about ignoring him. He didn’t deserve to be kept in the dark about everything, especially about Dad’s illness. Maybe her parents might find a way to lie to the rest of the world about what was really going on, but they had to bring Eric in on this. He was part of the family after all. So what if he wasn’t an actual blood relation or even a freaking Ethian, he absolutely deserved to know the truth––all of it.

  “Mom, what are we going to tell Eric? He’s texted a bazillion times, and he’s called and left four voicemails. He knows something’s going on with Michael. I didn’t read all the texts he sent me, but I saw Anna contacted him when she couldn’t get through to the rest of us.”

  My mom blew out a sigh of frustration. “I don’t know, Emmaline.”

  A sudden bolt of anger jolted through her. “What do you mean you don’t know? We have to tell him the truth, Mom. The sooner the better, especially with Dad the way he is.”

  Mom turned to look at Emmaline fully, her eyes narrowing. “And what am I supposed to say exactly? That your father and I are aliens to this planet, and have been hiding who were truly are from everyone, including him, for twenty years? Or that Michael was taken by his biological father, who is the Emperor of a galactic empire that’s thousands of light years away, and we will probably never see him again? How do you think he will take any of that? How would I even begin to explain?”

  “I don’t know how he’d take it. Badly, probably, but if you try to cover this up and don’t tell him now and keep lying, he will hate you forever when he finds out the truth. And he will find out. This isn’t something we will be able to keep from him long term. How else will you explain Michael’s absence and what’s going on with Dad?”

  Emmaline folded her arms across her chest and put a defiant look on her face. “Besides, if you lie to him, you will need me to back you up, and I refuse to do it, Mom. Eric is my brother, and I love him, and unlike you and Dad, I don’t lie to the people I love.”

  As soon as she had said the words, Emmaline wished she could take them back. Her mother’s reaction was immediate and vivid as she looked as if Emmaline had physically slapped her .

  Em dropped her arms and the defiant expression, shrinking into herself a little and whispered. “Sorry, I didn’t mean that.”

  “Yes, you did,” her mother said coldly, and after a long moment continued. “And I suppose I deserved that, but Emmaline, don’t ever think your father and I don’t love you. We do deeply. And we love Michael and Eric just as much. Never doubt that ever, please.”

  Emmaline nodded. She knew they loved her. Really, she did. It just hurt that they had kept this really big secret from her, and she supposed she might be upset about that for a while. Maybe a long while.

  “I suppose I will have to make a call to Eric, but I’d at least like to know more about what’s going on with your father first. Okay?”

  Emmaline looked up to see her mother give a half-smile. It was like a peace offering, and she grabbed hold of it eagerly with her own half-smile reflecting back. She really didn’t like the weirdness that had come between the two of them since all the revelations had started.

  “Okay.”