Chapter 183: Weight of Yesterday
April stood frozen in the center of the vast, quiet room. Her fingers slowly uncurled, her grip on the silver gun slackening until the heavy weapon nearly slipped from her palm.
She stared at the empty space where the four chairs had been set.
Her mind was reeling. The volume of recovered memories—sixteen years of a stolen childhood, the warmth of the impoverished old woman who had raised her, the terrifying needle in the dark basement, the decade of horrific servitude under Madam Morgan—was crashing against her skull like an unforgiving tide.
This wasn’t part of her calculations. This wasn’t part of the script.
She had mapped out every single variable for the coming apocalypse. She had her fortune telling system to read the timeline of the falling supply chains, and the rising sea levels.
She had prepared the structural fortifications of her compound, and the precise value of every resource. She put every single variable in her calculations. But this... this dark, twisted knot of blood, trauma, and a twin sister she had never known existed...
There was no paragraph of this in the script she had written in her head.
Her knees buckled. Her body gave out under the weight of the sudden, crashing exhaustion, and she stumbled backward.
Before she could hit the marble, Nat moved. His broad arm swept around her waist, catching her weight with effortless, absolute security.
"What am I... what am I doing now?" April whispered, her flat, clinical composure completely shattering.
Her hand shot out, her fingers twisting desperately into the lapel of Nat’s dark coat, clutching the heavy fabric so tightly her knuckles turned stark white. Her other hand remained clamped around the handle of her gun, her nails digging into her own palm.
"I feel lost..." she murmured, her brown eyes wide, unblinking, and vacant as she stared at the high ceiling. "I don’t... I don’t know what I should do."
Slowly, her legs folded beneath her, and she slid downward toward the cold floor. Nat didn’t pull her back up. Because her fingers were clutching tightly into his coat with a frantic, terrified grip—like a drowning person holding onto the only solid piece of wreckage in an open ocean—he went down with her without a second of hesitation.
He dropped to his knees on the marble floor, wrapping his arms around her back to absorb her weight, pulling her close against his chest so she wouldn’t have to hit the cold stone alone.
"I’m tired," April whispered, her voice barely a breath.
She pulled her legs up against her chest, curling into a small, fragile ball against him. The sharp, untouchable seer who held the fate of millions in her hands was gone, replaced by a twenty-six-year-old woman breaking under the weight of a past she was never allowed to process.
"I’m so tired, Nat," she whispered into his coat, her breathing shallow and ragged. "What do I do?"
Nat didn’t offer her a cheap, easy lie. He didn’t tell her everything was fine, nor did he make a grand promise about the future. He simply held her tighter, resting his chin lightly near the top of her head, his long fingers gently pressing into her back to give her a solid, unshakeable anchor to lean into.
"You don’t need to do anything tonight, sweetheart," Nat said, his deep voice carrying a quiet, absolute stillness that cut through the roaring noise in her head. "Just let the world stop spinning for a minute. Just let us take up the weight."
Xavier stood motionless beside them. His long tailored coat hung heavy around his broad frame, his sharp, dark eyes fixed entirely on April’s curled form on the floor.
He didn’t step in to pull her away from Nat. He recognized that right now, in this precise second of raw, unfiltered grief, she needed an anchor to sink into—not a debate on who could comfort her better.
Xavier turned his head slightly toward the broken entrance where Samuel stood silently waiting.
"Samuel," Xavier said softly, his voice low and absolute.
"Yes, Sir?"
"Have you contacted the medics at our private facility?" Xavier asked, his dark eyes never leaving April.
"Yes, Sir. They are currently on their way and will arrive in five minutes." Samuel reported.
"And the other lady?" Xavier asked. "The woman who looks like April,"
"That would be Miss Emily. She is currently inside one of Nat Collins’ vehicles, resting." He explained, noting down the details he witnessed on his way inside.
Truthfully, when he saw her lying in the car, he thought it was April. But then the men outside told Xavier that April was inside.
He thought Xavier would argue or take it that they were insulting his intelligence but since April had told him about a woman who looked just like her, he did not question it and barged into the estate with Samuel.
So, April indeed had a twin sister and they were all getting to find out about it recently. It was because of this incident that the tough, and reliable woman he looked up to and vowed to serve was in such a broken and vulnerable state.
It made his chest tightened and his blood boil. If it were up to him, he would mete out revenge on her behalf. He was adept at breaking business men, but he would not overstep. The mantle had already been passed on to the Barbarian of a man.
"Make sure she receives immediate, high-tier psychological and physical care." Xavier commanded. "And secure the mother’s remains in the private chapel."
"Consider it done, sir," Samuel bowed his head. He glanced at April’s state once more before lifting his body and stepping out of the building to handle the logistics.
Xavier slowly walked over, dropping to one knee beside Nat and April. He reached out his warm hand, resting his palm gently over April’s trembling fingers where they clutched her silver gun.
"The nightmare is over, April," Xavier murmured, his deep tone grounding her floating thoughts like an iron beam. "You may be confused now but in the end, you won. They sent you away to break you but look at how you turned out. You are more successful than them."
April thought of his words. Yes, now she looked more successful than them but what about the occurrence in her previous life?
What about the fact that she never found her sister and never got her revenge on them?
What about the fact that her sister likely died by hanging herself and let them win?
The villains hadn’t been punished. Eleanor had taken the estate. Clara and Johan had lived in luxury. Victor had remained a spineless coward. They had won. They had completely, indisputably won in her past life.
When she tried to let her mind rest, the things that happened in the other timeline just came back to taunt her, to remind her that she was not always so fortunate.
The unfairness of it—that justice only existed in this timeline because of a miraculous second chance—boiled through April’s blood.
It made her tremble. It made her angry. So angry that she wanted to hit something, to scream, to just let it out.
She pressed her lips together, her eyes stinging with tears.
"It’s not fair," April sobbed out softly, her voice cracking as the first warm tear finally escaped her eye, trailing down her pale, dust-smeared cheek. "It’s just not fair,"
"Life’s not fair, sweetheart." Nat said, brushing her hand down with his hand and then he brought his lips to the top of her head and whispered, "You just gotta beat it until it goes the way you want it to go,"