“What exactly are you accusing me of?”
“Kat told me all about you, about how you were like the father she never had. She doesn’t realize how truly fortunate she really is.” The ire behind his eyes was unmistakable as his brow ticked up, reading Reynolds’s expression. The air grievously heaved from his lungs. “Tell me, will you be the one to kill her, or are you as spineless as I think you are?”
Mr. Reynolds didn’t say anything, his face now unreadable.
“Your lackey, then?”
“Why are you after Kat?”
Blaine’s knuckles turned white as he balled his hands into fists. “Why are you?”
“I’m not.”
“I saw you at the hospital,” Blaine growled.
Nathan stiffened.
“You injected something into her I.V. before I so rudely walked in on you. What was it?”
My stomach turned, and I had to brace a hand against my chest. What was he talking about? The memories snapped back into place. When I first woke up in the hospital, I had heard two distinct male voices. One telling the other that I wasn’t allowed to have visitors. Cinnamon and cigars. Mr. Reynolds had been in my room. But the other… the male nurse in the medical mask and scrub cap. Black hair; he had black hair. And he refused to look at me. “Shhh, you’re okay now,” he had assured.
Mr. Reynolds seemed to put the pieces together as well. “…You.”
“She’s a lot stronger than she looks, isn’t she?” A feline smile. “So what was it? Potassium chloride? I can only assume, given her heart slowed, along with her breathing. And she wasn’t exactly light on her feet when she woke up later.”
Potassium chloride? I’d learned about that in freshman science. It was what they used to kill people through lethal injection!
“And you still believe I’m the monster.” Blaine glowered.
“We do what’s necessary.”
In one swift blur, Blaine lunged at the bars, the silver chains stretched as far as they could go. The shackles weren’t long enough for Blaine to make a snatch at him, but the outburst sent Nathan reeling back nevertheless. “She hadn’t been turned, and you fucking knew it!”
“She was already dead,” Mr. Reynolds finally snapped. “Thanks to you. It’s unnatural, what she became. You’re the one who took her life away.”
“I brought her back!”
“Out of selfish need, no doubt. What I did, what needs to be done…that takes sacrifice.”
“Sacrifice?” Blaine seethed. “You’re a fucking coward! You’re not doing any of this for the greater good. It’s out of fear.” His pale eyes glinted, seeming to soak up all the light in the room. And his jaw. It trembled ever so slightly. “You said it yourself, she’s like a daughter to you.”
“I killed my own wife!”
Blaine stilled.
“Adam’s mother was a Changeling, and just like Kat, she’d been targeted by Hellhounds.” The only time I’d ever seen Mr. Reynolds outright cry was at her funeral, but even now, the very mention of her still brought tears to his eyes as he stared at the wall. “I came home one night to find half a dozen of our friends splayed in the kitchen, their throats torn clear out of their necks. And there was Madeline, sitting at the table, covered in blood, picking bone and flesh from her nails. Whistling. She’d been bitten. And as consequence, she killed all the other members of our pack, just because—as she put it—she ‘got bored.’ The only reason she didn’t kill Adam was because he’d snuck off to see Kat before his mom came home.” His gaze hardened as he looked back at Blaine. “I do what I have to.”
My body lurched as a high-pitched squeak struck the air. Darkness engulfed me once more, and it took me a moment to remember where I was. What had that been? Astral projection? Even wrapped up in the warmth of Adam’s jacket, my whole body shivered from the unbearable coolness in my core. I slumped against the side of the van, pinching my eyes shut. It didn’t matter what I did; the world kept spinning around me as if I was trapped in a tilt awhirl.
Maybe Blaine was right. If I surrendered to the pain, maybe it would hurt less. But I refused to allow it. The darkness coursing its way through me could very well consume my body, turning me into something even more horrific than a Hellhound. I couldn’t let it take hold of me.
The van shifted as I heard the front door open and close. A moment later, Russell unlocked the cabin doors, gesturing me out. It wasn’t much brighter outside. Low rumbles of thunder resounded overhead, and the bleak landscape illuminated for a split second as lightning tore the sky open. Trees sat in the distance, nothing but a lush green field stretching out around us.