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"I'm fine," I said under my breath.
My thoughts were focused on my mother. The minutes ticked by when she finally sank down to the ground and poured herself a cup of soup.
I settled my eyes on the forest floor and waited. Everyone's eating disappeared, and I listened to my own heartbeat pounding in my ears. I wasn't sure my actions were right, but something told me there was no other choice.
My nerves rattled along inside of me. I didn’t dare look up at Mother or the fact she was consuming eggs. She was deathly allergic, which seemed silly knowing her nature. I had cracked a few and stirred them into the soup. I couldn't taste them, and I figured she couldn't either.
Kellan's silence drew my attention. I looked up at his handsome face as he took a sip of soup. Everything he'd been through at the expense of my family made my chest hurt. “Do you want to kill Deidamia?” I asked.
He looked at me curiously. “That’s the plan, isn’t it?”
I swallowed. “If it wasn't the plan? Would you?"
He thought about it and nodded. “Yes. What’s going on—”
Mother made a noise underneath her breath and began to slowly choke. She wrapped her hand around her neck as her eyes rounded, and she jumped to her feet.
The betrayal on her face was evident. I’d deliberately given her eggs in hopes of ending her life. The guilt inside of me would slowly suffocate me. I could feel it growing. She'd raised me. Loved me, I think. Despite her actions, she'd never hurt me, and I was hurting her.
I was killing her.
I’d never seen her go without an Epi-Pen before or medicine. Her throat would close up, and she’d lose air to her brain. I stood up as she fell to the ground.
“What’s going on?” Ernest asked.
“I gave her eggs. She’s allergic. This is your chance to leave if you want. Mother won’t last long, and dawn is coming. Kellan and I are going to kill my aunt. You two can leave and make it back home. No one will blame you."
Ernest looked into the distance, toward the Dark Woods and down at my mother. “I’m staying.”
Fern’s fairy features were full of concern. She’s helped us along the way without question, but this wasn't her fight. “Kellan saved my life,” she whispered. “I want to help.”
Mother gasped for breath while rolling to her back and staring up at the sky. Tears gathered in the corners of my eyes. Part of me mourned at the sight of her. I took a step, wanting to save her life, but I had no way of doing so.
I’d killed my own mother, and it was already eating me alive.
Kellan turned me away from her. “Don’t watch that,” he whispered. “Trust me. You don’t want to watch someone you love die. You could have told me your plan. We could have thought of another way that I could have handled it. You're going to hurt now."
“I didn’t want anyone to know. What if she reads minds or something? It was better with me.”
Tears began to fall from my face. Kellan wrapped me in his arms and pressed my face against his chest. There was so much pain radiating through my heart as my mother’s breathing slowed, and I knew she’d left.
It wasn't going to go away anytime soon. I could feel the pain curling and knotting in my heart. Kellan held me tight, so tight that I prayed it numbed me from the inside out.
Daylight began to rise on the other side of the mountain signaling that we had little time to ready ourselves.
I pulled back and took a deep breath, putting on a brave face for the team. “How are we going to kill her?” I asked.
Ernest stepped forward. “I have an idea.”
Chapter Forty-One
Kellan
I didn’t like the look on Ernest’s face.
There was something he hid, and it lingered in the air between us. Fern and Josie didn’t seem to sense it like I did.
Grabbing Ernest’s forearm, I pulled him to the side. We didn’t have long before dawn. It was our only chance. Unless we made it an entire day to try again, and I didn’t want to push my luck.
