“I’m pretty sure you have a concussion,” I said, wondering if I should go and try to find Dev or just call an ambulance. Just as I was about to dig my phone out of my pocket, I had a thought, and adrenaline drenched my body, taking my breath.
“Did you see Lark?” I asked Turner, worry swamping me, making sweat break out on my brow and back, my hands going damp.
He gingerly raised his eyes to mine. “No, why?” he asked.
“Fuck!” I flew out of the back of the truck. “Fuck.” I looked around the area but didn’t see or hear anything. “I’m going to go and get someone for you. Make sure you get some help. Just hang tight.” I pushed both hands at him. “But I have to find Larken.”
“What do you mean you have to find her?” he asked, sudden terror in his voice and an expression of extreme concern crossing his features, even though I knew he was miserable.
“She came to the front of the house to talk to you. And someone knocked you out.”
“Oh, shit,” he said, his eyes going wide and voice sounding raw. “Please, no.”
I grabbed my flashlight and ran as fast as I could for the house, the sick feeling inside me growing with every step, my fear making the house seem miles away instead of steps.
Chapter31
~Larken~
Istood stock-still, steel in my spine and fire in my veins despite the feeling of what had to be a gun pressed to my side and the arm banded around my chest like a boa constrictor.
Somehow, I knew it would come to this, despite me wishing otherwise. I had been running from this for nearly two decades and had always known that my nightmare would catch up with me.
“Hello, little bird,” Lionel purred, just the sound of his voice like acid in my veins. I felt vitriolic hate bubble up, bringing my magic along for the ride. I tried to swallow it down, not wanting him to know how much he got to me or how strong I had become.
I shifted a little, trying to break free, my lips pursed in a tight line. But Trent’s arm just tightened around me more. “What do you want?” I spat, immediately chiding myself because I knew the answer. Here we were, my worst fear now a reality, and I had no control over anything. Even my mouth.
He walked closer, running a knuckle down my cheek. My stomach soured. “You, of course,” he said, the glint in his eyes reminiscent of the looks I saw in serial killers’ eyes on the docuseries I loved to watch. But, then again, that fit.
He pinched my chin and cocked his head to the side, seeming to study me. “I suppose it’d be more accurate to say that I want what you stole from me. What you were supposed to give me. What’s supposed to be mine. But . . .”—he shrugged—“semantics.”
“Go to hell.” I struggled again, and Trent just dug the gun into my ribs, making me gasp.
Lionel tsked. “That’s no way to talk to your stepfather. But, then again, I suppose that isn’t exactly true anymore.”
My body flashed cold. “What do you mean?”
“Oh, yeah,” he said, seeming bored. He actually curled his fingers and picked at one of his nails. “Your mother’s dead.” He looked at me then, and I saw the glee he took in relaying that information.
I felt a little woozy and heard my heartbeat in my ears. My eyes burned, and I swallowed the lump that suddenly appeared in my throat.
It affected me more than I thought it would. I’d basically written her off, even before I left, but as I’d told Kholt, she was still my mother. And I felt for Turner. Goddess, that poor kid. The sadistic asshole in front of me hadn’t even let my brother see her. And now, he’d never be able to tell our mother goodbye. Or that he’d found me. I wanted to scream.
“I mean, she kind of had it coming,” he said with a shrug, and I felt my hate for him surge, along with my magic once more. I needed to stay in control. I couldn’t lose it in this situation. My life depended on it—as did the lives of those I loved.
“If she’d just listened to me and done as I asked, the Divine never would have seen fit to let her get sick at all, let alone suffer and die. But she always was a defiant little thing at her core.” He raised an eyebrow. “I finally realized where you got it from.”
“My mother, rest her soul, was a beautiful woman who only wanted to find a place to belong. So much so that she made herself vulnerable to your lies and ended up unable to see the reality of things right in front of her. She became all but blind to the evil right under her nose. You.”
The backhand came swiftly, and I grunted, my ears ringing with the force of the blow, my cheek on fire from that godsdamn ring. I shifted my jaw around a few times and then looked up, blowing a lock of hair out of my eyes. I wanted him to see the fire in them. The loathing that burned there.
“My, my, my,” he said. “Somebody grew into herself.”
“You have no idea,” I gritted out through clenched teeth.
“So, little bird,” he said and took a slow walk around Trent and me, his hands clasped behind his back. “Are you finally ready to give me what you should have handed over so long ago?”
“I will give you nothing, you piece of shit.” I spat on his shoe like I had all those years ago and braced for the blow. It came, but as a punch to the stomach this time. I hadn’t been prepared for that, and it knocked all the oxygen out of me. I sagged in Trent’s hold, wheezing for breath and squeezing my eyes shut against the pain. I coughed a few times but set my feet, willing strength back into my knees to hold me.