A Fractured Light (Beautiful Dark)

“I made you something. We’ll talk.”
    We sat across the table in the kitchen. Aunt Jo had whipped up my favorite snack while I was in the shower, and the warm, fresh-from-the-oven cinnamon cookies now sat, cooling, on a plate between us.
    “I’m not going to push you,” Aunt Jo said. “You’re a good kid, Skye, and I trust you. You know that, right? I trust you to make your own decisions and not get influenced by a bad crowd.” She twirled the plate nervously in her fingers. “But I need to know where you were.” She paused. “And you’re definitely grounded.”
    “But I—”
    “No buts. That’s not negotiable. I was worried sick about you. What was I supposed to think? Do you even understand how selfish it was to disappear like that?”
    “I guess not,” I said hoarsely. This was the worst—getting yelled at, feeling guilty for something that had been beyond my control. I wanted to yell, “ None of it was my fault!” But I held it in for my safety—and for Aunt Jo’s. Who knew what the Order would do to her if I told her the truth?
    I was sick of everything being out of my control. Anger burned through me as I clenched my fists under the table.
    “So. Where were you? Not even your friends knew. Were you with those guys? The two you were telling me about?”
    I wondered, for a moment, if I could get away with telling her an abbreviated version of the truth. The idea of continuing to lie to Aunt Jo—someone who had always treated me like I was her real, blood daughter—made me feel sick.
    “There’s a cabin, in the woods. It’s not too far from here. I . . . discovered it. On a hike.” I swallowed. “I was scared.” And that, at least, was the truth. “I was standing there in the hospital with Cassie, and it looked like she might not . . .” I found myself getting choked up. “It looked like she was going to die, and it felt like my fault. Like I wasn’t there for her when she needed me this semester.” Aunt Jo murmured something to herself. “But it felt like everyone needed something different from me . And I didn’t know how to handle it all. Like everyone had a different idea of what my life should be. I had to get away.”
    “Skye,” she said softly. “What happened to Cassie was not your fault. One thing has nothing to do with the other.” I wished right then that I could have told her everything, but that’s how Cassie had gotten hurt in the first place. If I broke down and told Aunt Jo, I’d only be putting her in danger, too. And after seeing Cass in the hospital that day, her face bruised and her arms and legs in casts—that was something I couldn’t face.
    I just had to handle this on my own.
    Not on your own , a voice in the back of my mind whispered. You have Asher now. You have the whole Rebellion on your side.
    “A cabin,” Aunt Jo mused, breaking me out of my thoughts. “What kind of cabin?”
    “Kind of old. There was one of those toilets with the chains and weird closets with lots of little drawers. But someone was living there much more recently: there was coffee from at least the nineties or something.”
    Aunt Jo got a funny look in her eye. “I know that place,” she said. “I put that coffee there. Into the Woods has been trying to buy it for years, to use as a trail stop.” A small smile spread across her face. “How funny that you ended up in that cabin. That’s really where you went?”
    I nodded.
    “Thank you for telling me,” she said. “I’m not happy that you felt you had to run away for a few days instead of talking to me about it—”
    “You were never here!”
    “—but I understand that I was gone a lot. Jeez, Skye, I was just about to say that. I’m so sorry I left you alone for so long. I’m here now, and I’ll be here when you need me. Just talk to me, okay?” She eyed the cut on my face. “Believe it or not, your old Aunt Jo was a teenager once.”
    “Please,” I snorted.
    “All I’m saying is, I may know what you’re going through better than you think.”
    “Fine.” I slowly let my fists unclench under the table. “I’ll try.”
    “Good, but for now, you should go to bed,” she said. “You look exhausted.” She stood up and walked toward the door. When she got there, she turned around. The light from the stairs cast a fuzzy halo around her blondish-gray hair. There was something in her eyes that I couldn’t figure out.
    Things were definitely different between us now. First Ian, now Aunt