Chapter 4
EVER
There she sits, my mother, graceful despite having her ankles chained to metal rods driven into the carpet, her crimson dress torn and crusted with blood.
Long black locks spill onto the floor around her, lacking their usual luster.
Her cheeks sag. Her jaw hangs loose. But those black eyes of hers—they’re wide awake, gems of destruction, and I’m her target.
I’m rigid. Speechless. Maybe because half my body wants to dive at her and pull out fistfuls of her hair until she begs me to stop, then kneel on her throat and watch the blood vessels in the whites of her eyes explode as she fights for air she’ll never have.
And the other half wants to cry, to crawl into her lap and mourn the loss of a mother I never truly had and never will, to gather pieces of my past and use them to build new walls around myself.
I do neither.
I stand still, the death in her eyes matching the death in my heart, and I fight the thoughts intruding on my indecision, tipping me off center.
I want to slither into the darkness and give way to the violence, the lure of revenge.
I want to share the suffering—not as some attempt at mutual understanding—no, I want her to hurt like her skin is falling off.
And it terrifies me. I’m not like that. I don’t want another death on my hands. Another Cam to haunt me. Killing her was enough.
I dampen the violent desire with a grounding look around the room.
Light green walls cast a false sense of tranquility over the space.
A bed stands on its side, pushed against the far wall, and a sheet covers the floor-to-ceiling window.
Only a bucket and a canteen remain within reach of the Centress.
She tilts her pale face up at me, finding a regal angle despite how pathetic she looks. Her lips twitch as if a cruel smile were about to appear, but the effort was too great to follow through with it. “My daughter.”
No. She doesn’t get to call me that. She doesn’t get to pretend she cares. She’s no more than shared blood to me. I only want one thing. No bullshit. I move closer. “How do I find my father?”
A cackle slices through the room. “Oh love, only he can find you.”
“Who is he?”
She flips her hair over one shoulder. “Do you think I’m going to spout answers without something in return?”
“What do you want?”
“Freedom, obviously.”
“Not a chance,” Eli says. “You either answer her willingly before I kill you, or I force the answers from you and make it a slow and painful death.”
I wait for my conscience to kick in, to tell me I should be upset by that.
The fact that I’m not is more disturbing than my urge to help him take her life.
Stop, brain, stop. Please. The floor rumbles beneath me, building in strength until the walls and windows vibrate.
I put my hands out to steady myself. Eli remains firmly planted, his only movement a flick of his eyes in my direction.
Am I feeling nonexistent things now too?
“Interesting,” the Centress says, unperturbed by Eli’s threat.
He takes a swift step forward and stomps on her hair, wrenching her head back with the drag of his boot. “You don’t get to be interested in her. Ever. Again.”
She screams, and despite the beauty in the piercing sound, I shove him.
He hisses and hops backward at my touch, stumbling.
What? I can’t deal with his weirdness right now. “I’m trying to have a damn conversation,” I yell over her shriek, which transforms into a slow cackle.
“Did you think that would hurt? I know pain like no other.” She’s now composed, eerily calm as she smooths her tangled hair and looks at me. “I felt it every time I used my gift. I got to the point of being able to withstand any amount.”
I step closer, and her pale hand jumps forward in an attempt to grab my leg. A flash of silver dives between us and impales the side of her wrist, missing major arteries. Eli twists his knife, bloody flesh squelching against metal. I scurry backward beyond her reach.
My mother only huffs a high-pitched sigh, her nose twitching as she stares down at her blood soaking into the carpet. She tucks her hair behind her ear and glares at Eli, so he pulls his knife from her wrist and stabs it through her calf muscle. She merely grunts, her face expressionless.
“Stop,” I gasp out. “I still need answers.”
He comes to stand at my side and points his knife at the Centress. “If you so much as breathe on her, I will peel your skin and fuck your daughter on a rug made out of you.”
Gross. “Plan your home decor later,” I quip, turning and stepping in front of him. “And you don’t get to plan my abduction, then fuck me.”
That lone eyebrow of his rises in defiance. “I already did.”
True. “Again. You don’t get to do it again.” No matter what my body thinks it wants.
“That’s the part that concerns you?” my mother grits out.
I turn around and fix my gaze on her blood, its calming color, the smooth surface. “Why did you want my essence? And how do I have it?”
“Your father.” She wraps a fold of her dress around her wrist, attempting to stop the flow of blood. “He didn’t come home one day. I found his favorite stone set out on his pillow and put it on a chain to wear around my neck, close to my heart.”
I clutch her half of the stone tighter then drop it into my pocket before she sees it.
“That night, the moment you were born, it split down the middle and bruised my chest. You didn’t cry. I thought you were dead until I saw your eyes. They were everything. You were everything. Until I realized your father wasn’t going to return. I couldn’t stand to look at you.”
Then I was nothing.
She pushes the hair from her face with a bloody hand.
“I could only think of him. And how you ruined us. I wanted you gone. So I gave you half the stone on another chain, tucked it into your basket and sent you to Caldera. I’ve been alone since then, fighting for your future.
We had a chance to start fresh when you returned, and you ruined that too. ”
That only spurs more questions. And fury. “You didn’t answer me. What does that have to do with my essence?”
“Release me.”
Eli takes a menacing step toward her with his blood-streaked knife. She doesn’t even flinch. My hand goes to my own necklace without thought. I carried a piece of this wretched woman around with me my whole life? Letting her jostle over my heart with every miserable step?
Fuck that.
I pull it over my head and shove it in my pocket with the other half of the stone on my mother’s necklace.
They scorch a hole straight through my pants, my leg burning as the necklaces fall to the carpet with a thud—the sound of only one stone hitting.
One half yellow, half purple stone. No more jagged edges.
Not even two chains anymore. I stare at my once most beloved possession fused with the symbol of motherly rejection, hardly aware of anything else as I lift it from the floor and fold my hand around it, already cold.
The room fades into darkness. A voice echoes through the hollow cave forming in my heart.