Aria's POV
Damien found me there few minutes later, because of course he did, and he sat beside me without asking anything.
"She's not my mother," I said. "My real mother died giving birth to me." My voice was remarkably calm. "She was twenty-one, she was raped and she kept me anyway and she held me once."
Damien's arm came around me.
"Her name was Catherine," I said.
"Catherine," he repeated.
I leaned into him and looked at the plain wall across from us. I had been loved before I had any ability to know it, loved in the most costly way possible by someone who had nothing left to give but did it anyway.
"I want to find her grave," I said eventually. "When this is over. I want to go."
"We'll go," Damien said with no hesitation.
I closed my eyes and breathed. Outside, Charles Monroe was still out there, still moving and calculating.
