Chapter 33
33
Sonny
Q uinn is waiting for us on the couch when we return from our rooms. I half-expected her to bail as soon as we were out of sight, given how irritating she finds us. There’s a strong savory aroma that follows her around wafting from the kitchen and filling the area, reminding me that I haven’t eaten anything since breakfast.
I’m the last one down the stairs, so distracted by the delicious smell, my attention on my feet, that I almost don’t notice the way Jonah, Ava, and Beatrix have all stopped on the bottom step. Their mouths hang open as their gazes fixate on me.
“What?” I ask.
No one speaks, though. They’re waiting for me to notice the other two figures seated beside Quinn.
When I finally turn, my knees nearly give out.
Two people who look like my parents are perched on the edge of the couch, their backs ramrod straight and their eyes narrowed in on me.
For a moment, my mind scrambles to correct the sight. Shock has me stuck to my spot while I mentally roll through all the different possible alternatives, crossing each one out as I simply stare at the two strangers sitting before me.
My parents are dead. I buried them myself.
There’s no possible way this is them.
And yet...here they sit. Two people who look strikingly similar to the ones who raised me. With more lines creasing through their features and strands of gray swimming in their hair. My mother’s cheeks appear hollower than I remember, and my father has dark circles beneath his eyes that resemble endless pits.
But it’s them. Somehow, I know it’s them.
“Sonny,” the woman sobs my name when enough time has passed, as if she can’t stand being still for one more second. Bringing her hands up to cover her mouth, tears pool over in her dark eyes. Her voice sounds like every dream I don’t want to wake up from.
The man appears to still be frozen in his spot, his muscles eerily still as I slide my feet across the carpet toward them.
“Who...” I start to say, glancing toward Quinn with pure venom in my stare. “Who is this?” I ask her.
No, I demand . Because what the hell kind of game is she playing with me right now? I thought we could trust each other. What about all that bullshit about an olive branch? This is far from a compromise.
This is an ambush.
“Sonny, you know who we are,” the woman cries out. When I refuse to take my eyes off Quinn, she leans over into the plump woman to get within my frame of sight.
“Where is Raze?” I direct the question to Quinn again, who appears frazzled for the first time since I’ve met her. When she doesn’t reply, I repeat myself, only this time my voice is a roar that bounces off every curve of the room.
He must be behind this stunt. Probably projecting these images into my mind, so I believe they’re real.
“He-he’s busy,” she replies, leaning back in her seat as if I’m about to hit her.
Busy? Busy?! I’m going to shove my foot up his cowardly ass when I see him. If this isn’t him doing this, there’s no possibility he wasn’t aware of it, and he chose to be conveniently absent when they decide to drop this massive bomb on me?
I’ve quickly pivoted from denial to pure, unadulterated rage. Fuck him and all his empty promises. He can take his useless words and choke on them. If he wants my forgiveness after this, he’s out of his damn mind.
My eyes cut to the two people impersonating my parents, then back to the traitor beside them. “I won’t be speaking to any of you until he gets here,” I inform them all in an eerily even tone.
My feet close the distance to the stairs in three long strides, then I take each stair two at a time and jog down the hallway, slamming my door behind me for good measure.
I would have gone outside just to put more distance between myself and whatever the hell is happening back there, but I have no idea how to get through the doors of this stone prison.
Pacing the room, I consider the alternative that those people down there were real and are somehow related to me. Rage fills me again almost instantly.
My parents? My fucking parents have been alive and well this entire time while I’ve been alone in the world, mourning them and suffering beneath Divina’s thumb?
I kick my foot out, accidentally colliding with the foot of my bed. The wooden pole splinters into a million tiny pieces as the mattress falls off the slats and bounces off the floor. I bend over to look at my foot, expecting to find blood spilling out from crooked toes. Maybe the adrenaline has blocked out my pain receptors again, because that should have hurt.
But my foot is fine. My toes are all perfectly in line, and there’s no evidence of injury at all.
“What the hell is this?” I hiss to myself, pushing each toe around to test the bones. They’re all in perfect shape.
Another new gift. I want to kick my foot out and smash the other side of the bed frame when I realize I’ve just proven Quinn right again.
What bloodline could give me mega strength?
The soft knock on my door is the only warning before Ava cracks the door and cautiously peeks her head through.
“Can we come in?” Her eyes fall to the splintered pile at my feet, then quickly flick back up to me.
I nod and fall onto the crooked mattress as the three of them file in. I don’t miss the way they hug the wall to keep a safe distance.
“Hey, killer,” Beatrix drawls, her voice deceptively calm.
“So that was...” Jonah begins, quickly abandoning the rest of his sentence when I slide my eyes over to meet his.
“That was wrong,” Ava finishes for him. “On so many levels.”
“Yeah, it was,” I agree with a petulant pout. So, don’t try to convince me otherwise.
Ava blows out a breath. “We need to figure out how we’re going to respond.”
That has my ears perking up. “What do you mean, we?”
“We’re doing this together,” Ava reminds slowly.
“An ambush against you is an ambush against all four of us,” Beatrix agrees.
“If you want to pack up and leave, we’re right behind you.” Jonah hooks his thumb over his shoulder. “I mean, maybe we sneak a little bowl of whatever they had in the kitchen, and then we’re out.”
I giggle into my chest, too embarrassed by my outburst to look any of them directly in their eyes.
“Was that really your parents?” Beatrix prods.
My shoulders lift in a shrug. “It sure as hell looked like them.”
“Raze never mentioned anything alluding to them being here?” Ava questions disbelievingly.
That has my blood boiling all over again. I lift my eyes to meet Ava’s, letting her know exactly what I’m going to do to that sniveling asshole when I see him, but she cuts me off by sucking in a breath.
“Your eyes. They’re...they’re red ?” It comes out as a question, like she’s doubting what she’s seeing.
She’s appraising me like I’m a monster ready to reach out and take a chunk of her flesh. Beatrix and Jonah have equally horrified reactions, and my stomach sinking to my toes. I wish I could rip these goddamn things out and never deal with this again.
“It’s a Landry thing. I think,” I explain dismissively.
Jonah’s brows hit his hairline, and I notice that he’s leaning away from me a little further now, his arm crossed over his torso. “Red eyes?”
“Yeah . . . ”
His jaw hardens. “No, like...Your irises are red.” He enunciates the words, as if I’m not fully understanding what he’s saying.
My expression flattens. “Yes.”
“You’re a freaky little thing, you know that?” he teases, though his tone is a little too serious to be convincing.
I huff out a laugh and realize he’s managed to break through my intense anger twice in the span of five minutes. “What if those people are my parents? Wouldn’t it be a mistake to run away without demanding an explanation?”
“A worse mistake than letting their own kid believe they’ve been dead for nearly a decade?” Beatrix questions sarcastically. “Absolutely not.”
“They may have a reasonable answer,” Ava tries to say, but Beatrix holds her finger up and starts tutting.
“That’s weird, toxic behavior on everyone’s behalf. I don’t trust any of these people to tell us the truth after that little stunt.” Her eyes slide over to me, brows raised apologetically. “Sorry, Sonny. I know they’re your parents but like...be for real right now.”
“Thanks.”
“Of course, there’s a lot wrong with this whole scenario and we’ve got more questions than they’re probably willing to answer. But we should try to think logically.” Ava offers Beatrix a pointed glare.
“Yeah, obviously I was getting to that.” Beatrix rolls her eyes and shifts her focus to her nails.
“If those people are truly your parents, then this thing just got a lot deeper than we anticipated. I can’t imagine any scenario where my mom would allow her children to think she was dead while she’s off living inside a mountain in some small town.”
“Right. The conditions of this war they want us to fight for them get worse with each passing day,” Jonah agrees.
“So, we’ll get whatever answers we can before we make a final decision,” Beatrix surmises.
Ava nods. “No matter what, our loyalty lies with each other.”
We each mumble our agreements.
“So, now what?”
“No, we wait to see what kind of excuses Raze comes up with.”