Chapter 16 #2
“I don’t expect you to understand,” Cliff said, disdain surfacing. “How could you? You think you know me after less than a year? You didn’t even know my real name. I’m tired, Sylv. So goddamn tired. You’ve been too head over heels in your fantasy with Jon to see that.”
My flight staggered, lips parting but no words escaping. Stars above, he had stolen the air from my lungs.
“Look, my father is an ass, but he’s right about a few things,” Cliff insisted. “I was never meant to do this forever. Not like this.”
“So you’re just giving up?” I snarled. “After everything?”
“Don’t ask me to be your martyr,” Cliff hissed back, leaning closer. “Make your own sacrifice. I’ve done enough. And Anna… I need to see Anna again. She’s my family.”
My lip trembled. “I thought Jon and I were your family, too,” I said softly.
Cliff laughed. It was the warm, rich sound I’d come to adore, but the look he gave me made my blood curdle. My cheeks went hot.
“I know you believed that. You’re adorable for being an idealist, but look at us. We will never be the same.”
Each word drove a blade deeper into my heart. Just hours before the gala, he’d come for me in the spectral plane, wrapped me in his fierce embrace. Tears blurred the edges of my vision. I had never felt safer than when tucked in his arms.
“So everything you’ve said, everything between us for months—you were just entertaining me? I don’t believe you.” I gave a cold scoff of laughter tinged with venom. Could you die of humiliation and heartbreak? At present, it felt possible.
Cliff glanced around like he wanted to spare me from having this conversation in front of everyone.
“Look, it’s been pretty obvious you’ve been obsessed with my approval from day one.
I just thought humoring you might be a little more pleasant.
” His gaze sharpened, something cruel surfacing.
“Besides, what was it you said? I wish I had never met either of you. Pick a lane, sweetheart.”
It felt like a knife in the ribs. My words shouted at him in the spectral realm, now thrown back in my face. I thought he’d understood.
How could I have been wrong on all counts?
Cliff reached for me with one hand—whether to soothe or capture me, I wasn’t sure anymore. Those hands had once protected me; I’d trusted them.
I shot out of his reach, higher in the air. Right now, I wasn’t sure I ever wanted Cliff to touch me again. I kept waiting for any tell on his face to indicate a plan, or a flicker of guilt preceding him recanting it all.
But there was nothing.
He just stared at me like a pathetic creature that would never understand.
“Coward,” Ben said, his thready voice shaking with anger. Cliff turned to face where he hovered near the captives in the glass case. “You’re a fucking coward. Running away the moment it’s convenient.”
Cliff scoffed like Ben’s fury was amusing. “Call it whatever you want. The assholes who survive make the tough calls.”
Eros set a hand on Cliff’s shoulder and squeezed. Cliff tensed, but didn’t pull away.
“Proud of you for finding a healer. Quite rare, their kind.” Eros looked paternal for the first time since I’d laid eyes on him. Proud of his lying, wretched son.
I backed away, pulling myself closer to the ceiling and out of reach from all of them.
The lights flickered, and at first, I thought it was my own emotion-clogged magic affecting the room.
But then, I heard it: a low rumble from deeper within the hotel.
It rippled outward in a short, brutal burst, sending faint shockwaves through the foundation of the building.
Everyone in the room stood on edge, watching the twin chandeliers shiver and rock overhead.
Three more guards came through the door, watching Eros for direction in response to the disturbance.
Movement surged in the corner of my vision.
Shifting her weight carefully on her injured leg, Delilah launched herself at Tammy.
Her bound hands became a bludgeon, swinging down to connect with Tammy’s face again and again, until the handgun thumped from her hands onto the carpet.
The guards lifted their weapons, taking aim as she reached up to wrench the cloth from her mouth.
Delilah gasped out a single, desperate verse of Latin. She shrank, assuming the form of a white, long-haired cat before our eyes. The zip ties now swam around her paws.
“What the fuck—” One guard staggered back, eyes wide.
Delilah took the briefest moment to acknowledge Ben and me before leaping through what remained of her gag, darting for the door.
The guards attempted to seize her, but it was clear they were well-versed in hunting humanoids, not household pets.
She dodged their uncertain movements easily, weaving through and under furniture towards the exit.
It was Cliff who bolted into her path, seizing her around the middle and whisking her off the floor. Delilah yowled, biting down on his hand.
“Fuck!” he shouted, flinging her to the floor.
Delilah bolted through the cracked door. Cliff cradled his left hand, which was dripping blood from tiny, poignant canine incisions. She had gone for the bone.