47. CHAPTER 47 #2
“How long did it take?” Zayne asked. “Was she in pain?”
“No. There were several bullets. The coroner believes the first one killed her instantly. It severed her aorta.”
“She must have heard the soldiers come. The gunfire…” He closed his eyes against the image of Edwards' trembling fingers, her screams of agony from the bullet in her gut. His voice bellowed in a guttural roar. “The Phaedra killed her.”
“Stop.”
“She’s dead because of him. Because of us.”
His father pushed him against the wall. “I’m ordering you to shut your mouth.”
“You’re ordering me?” Zayne gripped his father's collar. “You and the Phaedra murdered your own wife.”
“Don't forget he's still your Phaedra.”
Zayne pushed his father back a step. He’d never done such a thing. Not once in his life. “Take your orders and your Phaedra and get the hell away from my mother, you son of a bitch.”
His father flattened him against the wall again. It wasn’t anger or indignation on his face, but pure fear. “Pull yourself together, Zayne.”
“Or what? You’ll watch him kill me too?” Zayne glared into his father’s eyes. “Do you think I care?”
“What would you have me do?” His father dug his forearm into his collarbone.
“Are you so naive to think anything is better than the Phaedra?
That chaos would be better than control?
The people's lives are in our hands. No matter what we lose, we can't forget that responsibility. I need you to continue fighting for the people.”
The people…
Kira needed him. He couldn’t mindlessly throw his life away. There was no escaping this. He'd carve Mom's name into the tree and carry her death with the others because he couldn't abandon Kira.
Sobs ripped through Zayne’s chest, tearing out chunks of his heart without mercy.
Strength fled his body, and his head fell against his father's shoulder.
This was real. He was awake.
He'd do anything to bring Mom back, but there was absolutely nothing. It was over.
Mom had too much life left before her. Andi's graduation was coming up. And the girls. She'd watch them grow up and see who they’d become. After her life of dedication, she'd live to see revolution in the streets. She'd escape the prison she lived in.
This was all wrong. Mom couldn't miss everything she fought for. Couldn't miss the children and grandchildren she loved so much become who she believed they could be. Couldn't miss Kira free in the territories.
His father slammed him against the wall again as if he could knock the grief from his body. Pain splintered through his wound and his fresh bruises. “Now is the time for strength.”
With enough speed to catch his father off guard, Zayne hooked his boot behind the other man's, grasped his shoulders, and spun, pinning him against the wall in a flash. It happened so fast Father didn't even struggle.
Forearm digging into the man's throat, Zayne pushed hard enough to shut him the fuck up.
“Strength?” His voice rolled from the depths of his soul, the parts of him pushed so far down he never felt them.
Slow and dripping with death, he looked into his father's eyes from mere inches away and spoke.
“Like the strength it took to watch in silence as my comrades were slaughtered in the North?”
Zayne kept enough pressure on his windpipe to teach him that he could kill him if he wanted to.
“This is strength, Father. Waking up broken day after day, fulfilling my duty anyway. If I gave in to weakness, I would have already torn the Phaedra's head from his body.” One last push against him, and Zayne released him. “I'd rid the empire of us all.”
Coldness fell over his father's face like all the emotion had been sapped from him. Though he looked like the same man Zayne had always known, his presence felt so different, as if this new man only wore a mask of his father's face. A mask of humanity that concealed something entirely inhuman.
“If you defy the Phaedra, I'll deal with you myself.” His father drew his handgun and planted it squarely against Zayne's chest. “He won’t rehabilitate you this time. He’ll torment you. And I won't watch my son suffer a long death.”
“Trust me, Dad.” He clasped the gun and held it firmly against himself. “I know you won't hesitate to put me down.”
Life warmed his father's cheeks in a flush of red, the only evidence that drawing a weapon on his own son had his heart beating faster than normal.
“We're so much alike,” Zayne said. “Hurting people but believing we're helping. It was so hard for you to send me to Dr. Cooper. What a selfless savior, fixing me like that. And now the great and mighty High General will valiantly serve the people while his wife rots dead in his bed.”
His father's jowls shook, cracking through that hard mask. “Get your head out of your ass, boy. We’re at war.”
“Oh, yes. There’s always a war. How else could we justify what we do to keep our power? Look at her.” Zayne pointed at his mother, his voice a roar that echoed in the room. “This is our sin, Father.”
“Silence!” His father screamed over his voice.
“I will not be silent. Not with her body lying there.”
“This was an accident, Zayne. The Phaedra didn’t know she was there. No one did.”
“She deserves to live, but they didn’t? What’s the difference? That we love her?”
“Please, Zayne. I can't lose you too.”
“You already have. You've lost everything. You lost it all when you took the double seal on your arms. This is the price of loyalty. We have nothing, not even our souls.”
He returned to his mother. Heaviness dragged him down to his knees.
“Someone will stand at the Phaedra’s side,” Zayne said. “If it isn’t us, who will it be? And what happens if that person doesn't feel guilt for the evil it takes to keep power in this empire?” Warm tears wet his cheeks. “I tell myself that every day. When will I finally believe it?”
“You can’t do this job and carry such weight.”
“I don’t want this job. I never have. What’s the point if it couldn’t save Mom?”
He rose up on numb legs and turned partway toward his father, staring at the man’s perfectly shined boots and then glancing up at his pressed uniform until he met his eyes.
“I’ve never hated anyone as much as I hate myself,” Zayne said. “But I almost hate you and the Phaedra more.”
Horror gripped his father's face. “All these mistakes you’ve made, I made them first. When you’re standing where I am, looking at your own son, you’ll understand. You can't afford to care so deeply.”
“I can’t afford not to.”
It was time to leave. But the lifetime between him and Mom caught hold of him.
Not only the days they'd already spent, but the years she should have. When he left, he’d never see her again.
They’d cremate her. And he'd spend the rest of his life without her. How could he leave her? He couldn’t.
Zayne stared at her, terrified like a child waking up alone in the dark, smothered by the unknown.
He could never leave Mom.
But he had to eventually.
Last night, they both told one another they loved each other, and Mom asked him to keep Kira alive.
She kissed his forehead like she had so many times before and expected to do so many times again.
Instead of touching her cold body, holding her, and bidding her farewell, he clung to the last time he looked into Mom's eyes.
That was how he'd remember her.
Even though he wasn’t ready, he turned his back on the mom who had loved him every second of his life. Physical pain shot through his limbs as he stepped through the doorway.
She’d promised to stay away from the church, so why did she go at the most dangerous time possible? Did she lose her mind from the grief of seeing Kira forced back to prison? Was she making a play to save her?
If only Mom had reached out to him.
“Don't worry… I'll stay safe and ineffectual in your father's prison…”
Why didn't she let Zayne help? Was it because she knew he'd force her to stay safely at home?
Damn him.
He needed to end this bloodshed before Becka sacrificed more churches. What options did he have?
Kill Kira or her mother. Never.
Break Kira out. He kept trying and failing.
Do nothing and watch everyone die. Unbearable.
Mom always knew what to do when he didn't. How was he supposed to live in this world without her?