Natalia’s P. O. V
‘Why did you say that to her?’ Candy sighed in my head.
‘I’m just trying to protect her.’ I scrubbed at the dish in my hand with a little too much force and the water from the sink splashed all over my shirt.
I groaned, stepping back with my dripping hands in the air as I looked down at my damp clothes. After a few muttered curses, I returned my hands to the sink and finished up, placing the last of the dishes in the drying rack then wiping my hands off with a towel.
Candy waited till I was back in my room before continuing softly, ‘You know you can protect her without pushing her away.’
Could I really?
The thought of Hailey being harmed had been one of my biggest fears. If it came to it, I’d abandon the entire plan for the sake of keeping her safe. On the nights when nightmares of my failure plagued my sleep and I woke to the sick fears of what they’d do to my dear sister because of me, I knew I’d burn the world down if it meant keeping her out of harm’s way.
But of all the things I’d feared losing my sister to, myself hadn’t been one of them. Seeing her horror at my actions weighed on me more than I would have liked. And short of leaving things in the hands of the Royals when the Lightwoods were arrested, I could think of no other way to protect her from this side of me that didn’t involve pushing her away.
‘As long as she’s safe, I won’t stop what I’m doing,’ I admitted, looking down at my hands, ‘but I don’t want her to think I’m the monster after everything.’
‘You could stop.’ She said in a rush of words, ‘Leave this to the Royals. They’ll be here in two days and the Lightwood Pack has no clue. Drop Brittany and the others off somewhere in the forest and let the authorities take care of them. It’s not too late-’
Heat thrashed about inside me, seeping through my pores and singeing my clothes. I closed my eyes, sure that anything I even looked at would burst into flames. The thought of leaving Harry, leaving Callum, leaving Clark to be dealt with by anyone but me, in any way but how I deemed fit…
If that happened, what would be the point? How could I let the hell I went through and the years of preparation since escaping amount to a simple arrest and disbandment?
“I,” I declared through clenched teeth, “will be the one to punish them. Their arrest will be nothing more than the nail in the coffin I will put them in.”
She said nothing, slinking back in my mind.
A knock sounded at the door, pulling me from my anger. My temperature dropped at the distraction and I went to open the door, finding Hailey standing there.
“Hey…” The single word was full of concern, having obviously heard, and likely felt, my earlier mood.
“Hi.”
Her eyes went down to the burn marks on my no longer damp shirt then back to my face, “Can I come in?”
I stepped aside, letting her into the still tepid room. I watched a sweat drop roll down the back of her neck and disappear under her tank top before she turned to face me.
She got straight to the point, “I don’t agree with the lengths you’re going to. You burned half the face off our half-sister, hunted and maimed a pregnant woman, you plan to take the tail of our half-brother and kill our dad. And who knows what you’re gonna do to your former mate…”
She sighed, taking my hands with a wince that told me they were still hot, “But I’m not you. I can’t even fathom what they must have put you through, how you must have felt.” Her eyes searched mine, “I understand. I understand and I love you. That’s why I’m here and that’s why I’m not going anywhere till you come out of this on the other side.”
“You aren’t scared of me?” The question slipped out of me before I could catch it.
Silence passed and I bristled, bracing myself for the impact of her words.
“A little.” She admitted, and I inhaled sharply, starting to pull away, but her grip tightened, “But more than that, I’m scared for you. I’m scared of what doing this could do to you. I’m scared that doing this opens the gates for more things down the line and that you might not like who you become.”
“This ends with them.” I told her, earnest and hoping to assuage her fears, “Once I’ve made them pay and know they can’t hurt anyone else ever again, I’ll be fine.”
I know I’ll be.
She gave me a small smile and pulled me into a hug, stroking my hair, “I hope so. But I’ll still be here if you aren’t. So, no more pushing me away, okay?”
I felt myself relax, the last of my tension and heat dissipating in her hug. I wrapped my arms around her and nodded into her sweaty shoulder, letting out a small, muffled, “Okay.”
I didn’t know how long we remained in the hug, relishing in the small relief that I hadn’t lost my sister to my quest. When we finally let go, she spent the next few hours with me, talking about anything but this. I found it was a nice reprieve from the intensity of the last few days.
By the time we were bidding each other goodnight, I felt stable, secure, and ready for the next part of my plan. I closed my door behind her and returned to bed, determined to catch the few hours left of sleep before dawn.
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I rose before the sun, my body buzzing with tension and energy, despite the insufficient sleep.
After showering, I paced my room for what seemed like ages till it was time for the others to wake, feeling like a caged animal as I prowled the four walls. After they woke and were ready to leave, I stood at the window of the driver seat of the van, with Timothy and Hailey in the driver and passenger seats.
“You know what to do, right?”
They nodded, faces drawn and grim. Hailey leaned over to touch my hand that rested on the window.
“Be careful, okay? I don’t want you to get hurt.”
Someone would get hurt, just not me.
I gave her a smile, “I won’t.”
I walked around to the back. The doors were cracked open, a grim Kirstin looking into the space with the still unconscious... victims? Captives? Hostages?
Whatever they were, the effects of going three days without a bathroom were beginning to show, the smell of days of grime making my nose wrinkle. They were still out cold, but the drugs wouldn’t last for more than another hour or two.
“Please, don’t hurt him too much.” Kirstin blurted out, closing the van doors and turning to me.
I cocked my head, peering at her with a measured gaze. She looked like she’d barely gotten a wink of sleep. Her eyes were haunted, with shadows of pain beneath them, and her face was taut with unsettlement.
To say that her attachment to Harry didn’t concern me would be a lie. For someone that sought me out for revenge, she was disturbingly concerned for his wellbeing, even after having accepted his rejection.
“Why do you still love him?” I asked, finding myself genuinely curious.
She stalled and looked at the concrete, a look of shame crossing her face, “I don’t know… I know I shouldn’t, but I don’t know how to stop.”
It was that inability to stop loving him that made her the most unpredictable piece in my puzzle. Harry’s rejection had driven her to me, but I knew in my bones that if he asked her to be with him right this moment, she’d accept him in a heartbeat, and possibly turn me over in the process. Yes, the final act of my plot had begun, but her betrayal could, at best, help them evade capture, and at worst, put me or the others in danger.
The idea of leaving her behind turned over in my head. I’d assigned her a role for today’s plan, but I still had Tim and Hailey, so her presence wasn’t necessary for this last part. Before her flee from the pack, I hadn’t even intended to take her along for the final act. Her being here today all came down to one thing.
“Is your hatred for Clark greater than your love for Harry?”
She froze, and for a second, I saw the war raging in her head through her eyes. Then she replied, “Harry hasn’t given me any reason to love him, but I have reasons to despise him.”
I nodded slowly.
As long as that held true, then I supposed I could risk her presence.
“The challenge will go however it’s going to go.” I told her, “I can’t say for sure what will happen. But I won’t hit him when he’s already down. Or at least, I’ll try not to.”
She nodded curtly, sombre but accepting.
After that conversation, they departed with their objectives on hand, taking the longer road to their destination. I watched them drive away, till they were beyond my sight, then turned to the forest with a deep sigh.
My unease and fears swirled in my mind as I trudged on, numbly placing one foot in front of the other in a run. Before stepping onto the territory, I donned the necklace and slowed my steps so my footfalls were reduced to near silence.
Watching the buildings that had been my prison for nearly sixteen years from the treeline yesterday had been one thing, but approaching them was entirely different. The primal fear they’d drilled into me threatened to hold me in place, but the sheer force of my loathing propelled me forward.
I walked around the side of the pack house and in through the kitchen door. Looking around, it was a moderate mess. This had been where I’d spent most of my time outside of school, slaving over the stove to feed hundreds of despicable, ungrateful mouths. The appliances weren’t exactly dirty, but they definitely hadn’t been cleaned after each use, and the stoves had several small splatters that the new omega had overlooked for whatever reason. Some of pots and pans were strewn about, hastily rinsed off but not washed.
I left the kitchen, passing the dining room. On my way, I dragged my finger along the table I’d never been allowed to sit at and, quickly and silently, made my way up to the attic. I winced at the creaking of the door and slipped inside through the small gap.
It was untouched.
Dust had settled heavily over every surface, only slightly less on the loose floorboard Kirstin had used to hide the evidence. The thin mattress was in the corner, with the blanket laid haphazardly in the same position I’d left it. I walked over to the cracked mirror, misty and hazy from lack of cleaning. The reflection that stared back at me was worlds away from the one I’d seen in the mirror the morning of my escape. She’d been a bony shell of a girl, with nothing but fear and helpless hatred for her tormentors, living for nothing but the hope of a mate and the memories of a mother she’d lost.
The girl that looked back at me now was worlds away from that.
I spared one last look around where I’d once laid my head and nursed my wounds, then slipped back out. The house was coming to life with its waking members, so I dodged opening doors as I returned to the ground floor. I found a seat near the front door and took my place there, waiting silent and unseen.
Nearly an hour passed, and the house filled with movement and sound. The omega was the first to descend the steps, a pixie of a girl too hurried to notice anything but the breakfast she needed to start making as she made a beeline for the kitchen. The rest were groggy, sleepy-eyed teens and young adults who mostly congregated in one of the common rooms. A few cast puzzled looks in my direction, but ultimately decided to trust their eyes more than their noses and went on their way when they saw nothing amiss.
I smelled them before I saw them, and my ears tuned in on their conversation as they descended.
“Maybe she won’t have it.” Harry said, not bothering to hide the hope in his voice.
“Maybe…” Came Callum’s distracted reply.
As soon as they came into view of the entrance, Callum stopped dead in his tracks, making Harry pause to look at him.
“Did you forget something?” Harry asked, throwing him a puzzled look.
Callum remained mute, his eyes trained on where I sat and his brows turned up in puzzlement. I ignored Candy’s whines and mewls in my head and the heat that rose to my skin.
This was it.
Harry followed his gaze then looked back at him, “Are you good?”
Callum finally looked at him, blinking slowly, “Yeah- sorry. I don’t know why I stopped.”
I brought my hands to my neck, removing the necklace and pocketing it in one motion. Now visible, Callum’s eyes snapped back to me, going wide. Harry followed his gaze again, and joined him in a shocked expression.
I crossed my legs and cocked my head with the sweetest grin I could muster, “Good morning.”