During every moment of Holly’s drive home from visiting Leo, the flood gate of memories that held her before life beckoned at a proximity she could not turn away from.

Time was seeping inward.

It had went like this: she lost her husband, Owen. And then, before she could even blink, Ryan had been inserted into her life. She tried not to feel the feelings of loss for Owen.

And she made an attempt to not feel any resentment for having to house Ryan. It was a futile attempt. She knew this.

But Holly knew that she would need a clear mind to do what would soon be done.

And that was to tell her son that he had not been born on earth.

That he had been born on Rillarok.

And that they had been forced to leave the planet when Leo started showing intellectual abilities that were like hers.

Rillarok was one of seven planets in a ring around a moon that she could see almost every night when she had rocked him to sleep as an infant.

“I’m sorry darling,” she heard Ryan’s voice. She had been on the world of Rillarok, and Ryan’s voice startled her.

Plus, he had never called her darling. Only Owen had called her darling.

She wondered if time was being morphed into Owen. Did she actually hear Ryan? Had he actually said that?

Because his voice had kind of sounded like Owen’s voice.

Ryan walked down the hall and turned.

“You know what to do,” Ryan said to her. And then he had walked away.

She didn’t have time to figure out this mystery. And she let her mind go back to her previous life. With Owen. And long before Leo was in juvie.

The new order that had established themselves on Rillarok were in the process of eliminating, or trying to change, those that challenged them with certain capabilities.

They felt threatened by the Elion family.

The new order could not have people in their city that might use their intellect in more ways than the average person on Rillarok. Or rather, this was the line of thinking that the new order had. If only they could have seen this, and just stopped.

It would have saved her brother.

When Leo was about nine months old Holly had been called into a meeting in the dreaded capital building.

They would need Leo to come to the clinic that was in the high rise building on the outskirts of the city. It seemed that day by day the building was getting taller. There were more floors being added. And it was all for the clinic.

Holly knew about the clinic.

She had been warned by her father before he died not to bring her son there.

“The things they are doing now,” he had said to Holly. He closed his eyes and paused. He had been the clinic director there, appointed by his own mother, until that which he had voiced had resulted in him being fired. The new order most certainly had something to do with this, she knew.