“Stop it!” I scream, pulling at my chains.Reid! Dad!I scream through the bond, but it’s silent in return.
Bane grabs my mom’s head and tips it towards me. “Tell her the truth!” he demands shoving my mom’s head into the wall. She cries out in pain, and I scream in anger and frustration. “Tell her!” he roars at her. I know by looking at him that he’s ready to kill my mom. There’s no calming him down.
“Mom, tell me!” I demand with as much force as I can. “I don’t care what it is; just tell me.” Her eyes are full of agony as she looks at me, and I can’t take it. She has blood dripping down her face and arm, and her face is ashen. She closes her eyes, and I beg her to just tell me and end this. “Mom, whatever it is, it will be okay.” I keep my voice calm but authoritative. “It’s not worth dying over.” She opens her eyes, and they plead with me. But I don’t know for what. I’ve never seen her like this. Of course, I’ve never seen my mom tortured before. I watch as the tears track down her face, and I swallow the sob in my own throat. “Tell me,” I plead with her.
Bane steps back and cleans his knife on his pants. “I’ll be back when you’re ready to tell the truth.”
“You can’t just leave her like this; she’ll bleed to death,” I yell at him. He doesn’t say a word in response, and he and the other men leave. “Mom,” my voice cracks.
“I’m okay, Baby; I heal fast.”
Not without her wolf, but I don’t speak the words out loud. “What can I do?”
“I’m just going to rest for a little bit.” Her voice is thin and weak, and fear fills me. I can’t lose her. I pull against my chains, causing my already cracked and bleeding wrists to bleed more.
“I’m going to get us out of this, Mom.” She doesn’t respond, and I curse Bane all over again. I have no idea how much time passes before Bane shows up once again. All I know is one minute I’m asleep, the next, I’m soaked with cold, wet water. I gasp and try to catch my breath. I hear my mom doing the same next to me.
Bane pulls over a stool and sits in front of my mom. “Rest well, Kelley?”
“Go to Hell, Bane.” She spits in his face, and I can’t decide whether to be angry at her for it or proud of her.
He stares at her and then slowly reaches up to wipe the spit off his face. “Are you ready to tell the truth?”
My mom doesn’t say anything. Bane sighs. “This is getting old.” He walks over to the black box, and my panic grows. My heartbeat is already beating too fast. I know it’s a combination of fear and fatigue and probably dehydration.
“Mom, just tell me whatever it is you need to tell me.” I refuse to let any more harm come to her. “I already know the story.”
She closes her eyes as if she can’t look at me, and I can tell she’s given up. Her breathing is rough, and she looks terrible. She looks ready to break. She finally speaks. “I slept with him.”
Her words are like a gut punch; I can literally feel the impact of them. So many things hit me at once. “Does dad know?” I ask in a whisper. She doesn’t respond, and I get my answer. I feel betrayal on my dad’s behalf, but I push it away. I can’t deal with that right now. “Okay. We’ll tell him; it will be okay.” I’m not sure if I’m saying the words to me, to my mom, to Bane... “Dad loves you, Mom. It will be okay.”
“It’s not okay!” Bane roars at me. Before I realize what he’s doing he spins and throws a knife. I don’t even get a chance to brace. It slams into my upper arm.
A scream rips from my throat without my permission. “Stop!” My mom screams at him.
“Tell her the rest!” he roars.
I turn to mom as agony spears through me. I can’t even dislodge the knife from my arm; I’m pretty sure it’s lodged in my bicep. I’m past feeling anything but anger. “Just tell me!” I yell at her. “This ends now, unless you want either of us to sport another knife wound.”
I watch Bane walk over to the box. He pulls out a knife, unlike any I’ve ever seen before. The blade is almost conelike with jagged teeth on all sides. I can’t imagine the damage it could do. “Mom,” I plead with her.
She stares at me as tears track down her face. “It was only one time.” There’s such sorrow in her voice; it breaks my heart. “It was early December, and I shouldn’t have been fertile.” Everything around me seems to go still, and I lock my focus on her. “I got pregnant.” The words are barely a whisper.
Shock and unbelief war inside me. “But...” I don’t finish; I can’t. I suddenly feel sick. “Mom?” I can hardly speak.
She closes her eyes as if the fight has gone out of her. Her head hangs as she speaks quietly. “She came at thirty-nine weeks, and I gave her up for adoption. That was right at the beginning of my sophomore year. I never told your father.”
And then the world tilts once again. “Adoption?” Bane asks. “Adoption?!” he roars at her. “She’s my daughter! I raised her!”
“You...she...” my mom’s sputtered words die out.
So many feelings flood me; it’s overwhelming. I don’t know what to say, what to think. “We have a sister?” That’s all I can get out. I feel sick, betrayed...like everything I’ve ever known is a lie. But there is no processing this, not now. My mom sags, and her head falls forward. “She’s lost too much blood.”
Bane laughs, and it’s chilling. He flips the blade he’s holding in the air. “I can end her suffering.”
Horror crashes through me. “No.”
He steps closer to her. “It would be the humane thing to do.”
