Chapter 16
The knife hovered in the air, the blade shining in the streetlight glow. There was nowhere to step back. Sophia’s black eyes focused on hers.
“You and Ryker are poison,” Sophia said to Mihail, sounding subdued.
Audrey’s aura touched her mother’s thoughts. Nothing came back except fire.
“Every word you say is a lie,” her mother said. “This ends today—with Audrey’s death.”
Air popped. Whatever history lived between Mihail and her mother was old and bloody. The more Sophia snarled at Mihail, the less afraid Audrey felt of him. That hatred from her couldn’t be faked. Her mother despised Mihail and Ryker down to the marrow. That had to mean something.
She loves me. She has to. She’ll get us out. She’ll—
Audrey held on to those thoughts as a tether. If they weren’t true, there was no hope at all.
“It’s not insanity,” Mihail said. “If you’d stop long enough to listen, you’d see it could be different this time.”
“Any plan of his is a death sentence,” Sophia snapped. “All you’re doing is feeding the Aggregate bodies.”
Audrey thought of the file on Ryker. Death incarnate was less hyperbole than fact, written in bone.
Mihail only stared, almost placid, as if waiting for Sophia to damn herself with her own words. She didn’t. “Your daughter suffered when you locked her away,” Mihail said. “He would never do that to one of his own.”
“I gave up my family trying to stop yours.” Sophia’s lip curled. “And I will kill my own daughter before I let you take her. You’re not heroes, you delusional bastard. You’re the villains.” Her eyes flashed black, then cleared. She spat at his feet.
Mihail’s smile twisted. “Nice. You even got a choice. Most don’t.” He nodded to Audrey. “Tell her about Cary.”
“Cary is different,” Sophia snapped. “She isn’t a gold triad.”
The words detonated in Audrey's mind. She barely knew what they meant, but instinct yelled at her. Something rare, dangerous. Something hunted. She felt it in her blood. Whatever a gold triad was, it was no blessing—it was a target.
“Are you sure about that?” asked Mihail.
Cary’s laugh rang in her mind. She’d hidden that sound ten years ago, packed it away somewhere unreachable because the alternative had been unbearable.
Audrey tried to focus on breathing, but the questions came anyway. Was she one of these gold triads? Was Cary alive? It couldn’t be true. Audrey had watched her sister collapse into a puddle of blood. She’d constructed her entire grief around that image.
“Mom?” Audrey rasped. “Cary is...what? What the fuck is going on? Tell them you’re lying.”
“I’m not lying.” Sophia didn’t look at her. “Cary didn’t die in the fire.”
Audrey’s mind went blank, her whole body locking up.
“I saved her,” added Sophia.
Of all the impossible things in the alley, that was the one that split Audrey open.
Memory struck hard and without mercy: Cary’s body on the floor, the blood, the helpless certainty that she was gone. Audrey had lived inside that certainty for ten years. She’d let it calcify. It had become one of the only fixed truths in a life built from contradictions.
Now, even that was gone.
Sophia’s knuckles grew pale as the blade drifted, turning until the tip lined up exactly with Audrey’s heart. “Now I’m going to kill you. And you, Mihail, are going to tell me where my other daughter is.”
The knife Audrey had been so relieved to see in her mother’s hand—the one she’d assumed was meant for Mihail—steadied in front of her.
All she could do for a few seconds was stare at it.
Sophia’s eyes slid to Audrey at last. “Circumstance gave you a losing hand. Me, too. There are only bad options for gold triads like us. I see that now.” She wavered, grief flaring out momentarily from her aura.
“You think I want this? I failed before, and I can’t risk it again.
I’ve watched what happens when gold triads—those with rare, coveted powers—are found.
The ones I tried to protect ended up worse than dead.
I won’t stand by and let you become another weapon for Ryker to use. ”
Gold triad. Those words resounded again like a death sentence. It wasn’t a diagnosis, nor was it a favor—it was a category made for those who had powers people would kill for.
“I’m killing Audrey,” Sophia insisted. “Then you tell me where Cary is.”
“Audrey lives,” Mihail said. “As for Cary—she’s gone. Even if I knew, I wouldn’t tell you.” His eyes shifted to Audrey. “We need both of them.”
Somewhere behind Audrey, Emerson still hadn’t gotten up, but his rough breathing scraped over the pavement.
“Mom, don’t,” Audrey whispered. “You’re wrong. I’m not powerful. I don’t want to hurt anyone. Sometimes thoughts just reach me. Please stop.”
Sophia’s eyes were wild. The blade wavered. “Don’t move,” she warned. “It’ll be fast.” She steadied her weapon, mouth trembling. “I’m doing this because I love you.”
Fear crushed Audrey’s ribs, like a suffocating band had been wrapped around her.
“I was wrong. I couldn’t keep you hidden. Not from them.”
“Please,” Audrey begged, moving closer despite the hovering weapon pointed at her chest. Tears clouded the world. “Please don’t do this. Please.”
Sophia shut her eyes. “If there had been any other way,” she whispered, “I would have taken it.”
“What happened that night?” Audrey sobbed. “Why? Did I cause the fire?”
“No,” Sophia said. “I started that fire to kill you.”
Audrey stilled.
The sentence didn’t even feel real at first. Her mind rejected it before it understood it. Her mother hadn’t failed to save her. Hadn’t made some catastrophic mistake. She’d meant it.
Everything else in the alley fell away.
Audrey drove herself into her mother’s mind on instinct. Images from the night of the fire assaulted her—all from Sophia’s perspective.
And she wasn’t lying. Not one bit. Audrey knew it with the sick certainty only telepathy could give.
The truth sank its claws in.
Her mother had tried to kill her before—and was about to finish the job.
“My flames came through the floor,” Sophia went on, her voice flat. “I tried to consume you. But too much went wrong. I meant to hide you with your father. Then I realized what you were. Your father wasn’t supposed to die—but you were.”
Audrey’s guts twisted.
“Once you took control of the knife,” Sophia said quietly, “you drove it into your father.”
Tears streamed hot and unceasing down Audrey’s cheeks.
It was too much to absorb. Her father’s grim expression flashed through her mind before the words fully landed.
The shape of his body. The impossible thought of the knife in her own control.
The old memory shifted so violently that it made her feel sick.
“It was an accident,” Sophia added. “But it still killed him.”
Still, Audrey couldn’t speak.
“Then you struck at me and slit Cary’s throat,” Sophia said. “I could feel the heat in you. Fire. Then I realized what you really were. And I chose. No one should have that power.”
Audrey’s vision tunneled. In that instance, all she could hear was blood beating inside her ears. Her knees threatened to buckle.
She had killed her father.
She had nearly killed her sister.
She believed her mother. She’d been inside her head, sensed the truth of it all. The scream ripped out of her before she could swallow it—a sound raw and animal, agony and rage twisting together. Underneath the grief, something else, cold and unbreakable, took root.
A thin, unbreakable line.
Her father would not have wanted her to die here for someone else’s war. He would have wanted her to live, to crawl out of the wreckage.
“Me dying is not your decision,” Audrey whispered, her emotions cold and distant. Everything came into focus. Sophia wasn’t a tragic soldier anymore—she was a threat. Prison wasn’t enough for her. Sophia belonged in the ground, and whatever version of Audrey had been pleading a moment ago was gone.
An empty sound rose in Audrey’s throat, inhuman and primal. “I’m going to make you suffer,” she said, calm and cold. “Before I tear you apart.”
This voice didn’t sound like hers. It sounded empty. Otherworldly.
The blade lashed toward Audrey, slicing through her shirt. A sting flared across her flanks as it nicked skin.
Before it could drive deeper, something invisible tossed it off course.
The knife hit the road with a clatter.
Power boomed through the lot like a clap of thunder, knocking Audrey off her feet. She hit the ground hard, her breath leaving her in a grunt. Blinking through the disorientation, she watched Mihail’s hand extended toward her, fingers still raised.
He’d stopped it. He’d saved her.
Not for her sake. For his.
Guilt flashed across her mother’s face.
Audrey hated her for it.
Rage poured through her so fast it made her feel sick.
Her mother had just tried to kill her again—and the only thing between Audrey and a second, successful execution was the terrorist who wanted to own her.
Another feral sound clawed out of Audrey’s throat.
Power came free before she could stop it, and the switchblade tore off the pavement.
Audrey went for it—but not fast enough, not cleanly enough. The blade buried itself in between Sophia’s ribs with a dull, final sound.
At first, nothing happened.
Sophia looked down at the black metal jutting from her. Her eyes lifted back to Audrey. She staggered, her legs tangling, then collapsed. Blood spread fast, a dark halo soaking into the concrete.
Her mother didn’t move again.
The alley knew it before Audrey did—she was dead.
Relief and horror warred in Audrey’s veins. There should have been more, yet all she felt was its absence. The part of her that had needed her mother had already burned away. She peered at her own hands, numb. They were still raised. Slowly, she lowered them.
Her mother’s long black curls spilled over her face, hiding it. Audrey was grateful for that small mercy. If she saw Sophia’s eyes, whatever was left of her mind might crack apart completely.
Sirens screamed beyond the alley. It was the only thing that sounded normal.
She had killed her mother.
The second parent she’d watched die. And now, there was no one left to go home to.
Unable to stop herself, Audrey repeated the instant her mother fell.
She’d tried to stop the knife, but her lack of control made that impossible.
As the shock deepened, so did her jitteriness.
It seemed like her bones were vibrating.
While Sophia had never been particularly nurturing, she was all Audrey had left.
How could she still hunger for comfort from the hands that tried to kill her?
And yet, a darker urge had overtaken her desperation for her mother’s love.
Guilt pushed in, stark and accusing: she’d wanted her mother to suffer, and now she had the power to make it happen.
Worse, some part of her enjoyed it, like she was already becoming the beast they all claimed her to be.
The longer she stared at the ground, the more her guilt changed into fear.
Audrey wasn’t just afraid of what her mother had tried to do—she was afraid of herself.
Was she doomed to become monstrous, or had she always been?
The taste of loneliness emptied her out.
Her longing for forgiveness, for someone to see her as more than a weapon, conflicted with the new, unwelcome knowledge that she was beyond redemption.
Mihail’s footsteps interrupted her train of thought. Audrey thought he might check the body. Instead, he lifted his hand.
Flame flowed from his palm, draping Sophia’s body in blue fire. In seconds, there was nothing but light, noise, and blistering heat. Audrey retreated, instinctively shielding her face.
The air torched her lungs.
It was over as fast as it began.
Where her mother had been was nothing but a blackened outline and ash.
Mihail crossed the space between them with the same inhuman speed that made her human senses recoil. His hand grasped around her arm, dragging her up and back. The world smeared, sound stretching thin. She fought him, her arms thrashing, her throat tearing with a shout.
She looked over her shoulder for help, for Emerson’s massive shape, for anyone.
But there was nothing. Emerson was gone, which scared her almost as much as Sophia’s body on the ground.
Was he dragged away by Nikos during the chaos or devoured by the fire?
Worry flared to life in her aura. Emerson had saved her earlier, his presence unexpectedly protective when she had needed it most. He was supposed to be just another pawn in her game, but somewhere in the struggle, he’d become her partner against the rest of the world—evidence that even accidental loyalty could matter.
While they barely knew each other, Audrey still held herself responsible for his fate.
Besides that, the answers might change what she fought for next.
“You’re coming with me,” Mihail said. “Ryker will want to see this.” The possibility of rescue and escape fell away. As he prepared to put her in a different kind of cage, it struck Audrey with increasing certainty that she might be the reason they kept building them.
His fingers pressed into the tendon of her neck. A needle pushed into her skin before she could twist away. Cold traveled through her arm.
Everything merged into bands of light.
The last thing Audrey saw was the swirl of her mother’s ashes rising into the sky.