Chapter 41
Ishrieked, kicking and flailing, but my father was unrelenting.
“Paul,” my father growled, spinning to grab him around the back of the neck. “What the fuck is wrong with you? Your children are in that house!”
“I don’t give a shit about them. We’ll make new ones.” Paul wriggled out of his grasp. “I never wanted them anyway, I wanted her.”
“Help them!” I kicked hard and my father threw me to the ground, knocking the wind out of me.
“There’s nothing to be done. We’re going home.”
Wheezing, I struggled to sit up through the burn in my chest and the dizziness sweeping over me. “Coward,” I croaked.
He stared at me for a second more before bending to throw me back over his shoulder. Paul trotted after him, an obedient little soldier casually destroying everything I held dear.
“My babies are in there! Your grandchildren are in there! Don’t fucking tell me there’s nothing to be done.”
My heart pounded in my ears, fury and fear wrapping around me into a potent combination.
Paul opened the back door of his truck and my father threw me onto the seat, slamming the door shut against the kicking soles of my boots.
Still dizzy, I scrambled up as Paul got into the driver’s side.
I yanked at the doors, but the child locks were on.
I screamed my frustration and threw myself against the seat when Paul took off, gravel kicking up behind us.
“Don’t worry, baby. You’ll be right back where you belong soon enough.” He followed a convoy of red lights in front of us, every inch of distance gained making me all the more desperate.
My boots clanked against empty beer bottles on the floor. I picked one up, holding it by the ice cold neck.
“Stop the fucking truck, Paul.”
“You’ve got some fire back in you.” Paul grinned. “Maybe I should let you out more often. You’re going to be so fun to break again.”
I had always hated him, but never before had I been resolved to kill him.
If I couldn’t do it here, I would find a time and a way.
The compound had plenty of poisons, or I could butcher him with a kitchen knife.
He didn’t get to live in this world when he was dedicated to taking our children out of it.
I grabbed hold of his hair, pressing tight against his seat, giving my arm with the beer bottle some room to move before I cracked it against his face.
Something feral washed over me.
Paul bellowed, cursing and sputtering, trying to grab for me and hold the wheel at the same time.
I pulled his hair as hard as I could, snapping my teeth into his hand when he reached back for me.
Hammering the glass against him had the truck jerking, swerving all over the gravel.
My next swing was against the dash, the bottle splintering.
I released my bite. Paul shrieked, the glass slicing his fingers as his hand flung out, trying to stop the bottle coming toward him.
I smashed the splintered end against his chest, and the truck served, making me drag the bottle down his arm, my hold on the glass in his body and the back of the seat keeping me upright.
I slammed the bottle down again, into his throat this time. Hot blood flowed over my hands. Paul let go of the wheel, pawing frantically at his throat as if that would do anything to stop what he had started.
The truck flung into the ditch and I crashed against the back of his seat, panting hard. The passenger side was crushed up against the frozen grass. I scrambled into the front seat, climbing over Paul while he bled out.
He grabbed weakly at me. I paused for a second to look into his eyes, feeling our bond shatter as the light left them. No matter how unwanted, the breaking of a bond felt like I was being sliced open from the inside out.
It was only a desperation to get back to my children that kept me crawling out onto the road.
My father stalked toward me in the glow of his headlights. I ran down the road, chest heaving, my soul burning. He tackled me around the waist and I rammed the broken bottle into the back of his shoulder as we went down.
“What did you do?” he roared.
“Let me go!”
He grabbed my wrist, pinning me onto the frozen gravel. The headlights brought out every one of his vicious features. “What is this fucking curse? Why do I only birth murderous daughters and traitorous sons?”
I laughed, bitter and hysterical. I’d killed Paul, Darrell had died trying to take Riley, and Theo had fled, abandoning every plan my father’d had for him. “We are what you made us. Maybe if a single one of you was worth any kind of loyalty, we wouldn’t be reduced to this.”
My father wrenched my arms overhead, pinning both wrists together. “You’re out of line.”
“And you’re a fucking coward!” Tears slid down my temples, first burning, then searingly cold from the wind. “You let him kill my babies! You let him destroy me for years, and for what?”
He grimaced.
“For what?” I roared. “Tell me what it was for!”
He slapped me hard, my ears ringing.
“I hate you.” I gasped out the words. Grief tore me apart even worse than the broken bond. “Cody! Paisley! Nora!”
I screamed their names over and over again until my voice was hoarse. I fought against my father’s grip, but he was so much bigger than me.
He smashed my wrists against the gravel until my grip on the bottle relinquished, then he dragged me up. “What was I supposed to do about the fire?”
“Go in after them, like I would have done,” I ground out. “Do something useful for once in your fucking life. You let him do that. Their blood is on your hands.”
“You’re hysterical. We’re going home and you’re going to learn your place as my daughter.”
“Go fuck yourself.”
A blur of brown and white crashed into him. He shouted, flailing against it. I struggled to sit up, my vision wavering.
“Foxtrot?”
Dizziness swept over me and I lay back onto the gravel, trying not to throw up. I closed my eyes. Maybe I would die right here. Then I would only have a few minutes of living in the world without my children, without my pack.
My name echoed on the wind.
I wanted to believe someone was coming for me, but it was too late. I choked on a sob. It was all too late.