“I don’t know. I . . . I . . .” I cannot look at Koen. Don’t want to. “I’m sad. And I’m . . . I’m so angry, and you don’t even- She was my mother, the only person who ever cared about me, and you don’t even remember if you fucking killed her
– “
I stop at the noise of something sliding across the mahogany. Blink through the tears. Watch it, incongruously pink and cutesy against the paper of my mother’s letter.
It’s the knife. My knife. The one Koen gave me to protect myself. The one I used against Jess. How did it end up here?
“How angry are you, Serena?” Irene asks. “At this man who murdered your family in cold blood? He took away your childhood and your home and didn’t even stick around long enough to make sure that you were taken care of. If he hadn’t killed Fiona, the three of us could have been together. There would have been no orphanage. No Vampyres. No Northwest.
You could have been happy. But Koen took that away from you. So let me ask you one more time . . . How angry are you?”
“I’m not- ” I start, shaking my head- and then stop.
Slowly, I let my eyes settle on Koen. His quiet expression betrays none of the turmoil I’m feeling. How angry am I?
A lot. A lot.
“Here.” The knife makes its way into my hand, already unfolded. “This man was angry, and he hurt you and your family. Now that you are angry, what will you do, Eva?”
This is a dream. A nightmare. I can’t be awake as I clutch the plastic handle and walk around Irene’s chair, dazed but determined. But I know what I must do.
I know that it’s right.
Someone drags Koen’s chair to the side to give me better access to him. Four hands keep him still, pinned to the chair, but there’s no need. Koen isn’t thrashing or wriggling away. There is no pleading, nor an attempt to convince me that I’m overreacting. He sits quietly, looking up at me like I’m a queen. His life and death are but my decision. He wouldn’t dream of objecting. If I want to carve his heart out of his chest, he’ll crack his rib cage open and lie prone for me.
My hands tremble, but not too much. I can do this. I can.
“You can do this,” Irene reminds me. “You are owed.”
I nod. This is my right. “I’m sorry,” I whisper at Koen, letting the tip of the blade graze the soft spot on the side of his neck. I’ve kissed that spot. Licked it. Buried my face in it.
I adjust my grip.
I’m sorry, I think.
With a firm swipe, I slice the ropes that tie his wrists together.
The girl was small. He’d have put her around three, but the Humans said she was older than that. At the time he knew little of children and nothing of Humans, and so he believed them.
She clung to him, her little arms skeletal around his neck. Her scent had a strident, chemical note, as though she had been given something that would keep her docile. “It’s what they did with the other kids, too,” the social worker told him grimly.
The child was asleep in his arms, and as he handed her over, he wondered, Is all of this a mistake?
But when the Human took her, he noticed that his hands had stained the girl’s shirt a bright green.
AFTER A LIFETIME SPENT DISSECTING HIS PARENTS’ DECISIONS, Koen was bound not to replicate their mistakes. I blame the fever and the drugs for not having realized it earlier, but it all starts making sense when several large wolves jump into the room.
Through the windows.
The closed windows.
I count four, then everything turns into pandemonium. Rainfalls of shattered glass. Toppled furniture. Screams and growls and the bone-snapping sounds of the shift. It happens so quickly, when a strong arm loops around my waist, my first reaction is to strike back.
Then I realize who I just hit, and gasp. “Sorry!”
“Fucking sharp elbows,” Koen mutters. Jess and another of the guards who brought him in are lying at his feet. The third is outside, being chased by a rust-colored wolf. Jorma.
“Where did Irene go?” he asks the only cult Were who hasn’t shifted. “Don’t make me repeat myself. Where the fuck did- “
“I don’t know! I don’t know!”
Koen mutters something about a waste of space and tucks me behind him. “Saul! Here!” A brown wolf quickly defeats his gray opponent, then turns to us. He leaps over Jess’s unconscious body and positions himself next to me, snarling at no one in particular. “Do not leave her side.”
“What- Koen?” I grip his wrist. “Where are you going?”
“To find Irene.”
No, I nearly protest. But why? “If you find Human members, please don’t- “
“Serena.” His forehead briefly touches me. “We do not hurt Humans if we can help it.” Our eyes meet for a split second. I nod. Koen does, too. I feel him take my hand and slip something in it- the pink knife.
A second later, his glossy black fur is in the thick of the fight. He snaps his jaw around the idiot who tries to stop him, then chases Irene’s scent. I don’t take my eyes off him until I hear a sob behind me.
I race to the living room, finding Nele and her family huddled together in a corner with two Human boys. When I rush to kneel in front of her, they all scream in sheer terror.
“It’s just me. Nele, we were together earlier. Alone. I wouldn’t hurt you, would I?” I make a show of putting the knife down. Lift my hands. “It’s okay. They’re not here for you. Saul, can you please look less like you’re craving steak? Thanks.” It breaks my heart, the way Nele glances up at me, eyes brimming with tears and panic.
Was it like this for me, too? In that closet? Did Fiona push me in there and tell me that it was going to be okay? “Nele, you and your family will be okay, I swear.” Some of the tension leaves her body. “Just stay out of the Weres’ way.”
“They’re going to kill us,” her mother says. “They are here to- “
“They only came here to take me back.”
“How can you believe that? You heard what he said- they killed your mother.”
I clench my teeth. “Am I not your prophet’s daughter, too?” Their eyes widen, and I continue, “Trust me.” That seems to do it. They look slightly less like they expect to have their livers chomped on.
“What about Irene?” Nele asks, weakly.
“She’s gone.”
Saving her own ass.
“Are they going to . . . to hurt her?”
“I don’t know.” Saul makes a barking noise. “Maybe.”
“But she’s your only family.”
I snort. “You saw that tall guy out there?”
She nods.
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