Page 120 of Petrify

“No—I’m going to kill you because you made me not exist forfifteen years.”

Leo leans closer. He and Baz are only inches apart. Father and son.

Who is to blame for this? Who is the victim?

“You are a coward,” Leo says. “You never would have amounted to anything. And you deservenothing.”

A second later, Baz’s hands are wrapped around Leo’s throat.

Screaming shatters through the hissing, Mariane begging Desmond todo something.

Baz’s brute strength frightens me. I knew he was capable—this is the second time I’ve seen him strangle someone, but this time, he almost knocks Leo over with his ferocity. The muscles and veins in his arms bulge against his skin. His fingers lock around his father’s throat andsqueeze.

Those hands have been aroundmythroat.

“No!” Mariane wails.

Leo’s hands are tied behind his back. He can’t defend himself.

I force myself to watch it all. Desmond does the same, his brows pinched together, his arms crossed.

After thirty long seconds, Leo’s desperate choking, his kicking, loses its vigor. And then he stops.

Still, Baz doesn’t let go for another minute.

The body collapses to the floor. A few of the snakes creep closer.

Bastien looms over the body, staring down at the marred neck of his father. His chest heaves from the exertion, hands poised like claws at his sides, as though he’s itching to do it all over again.

I reach for him, and maybe it’s stupid to touch him now when his rage is so palpable. “Baz.”

His muscles are coiled tightly beneath my palm, a decade of anguish reducing him to a puppet. He eyes me over his shoulder. “Five minutes,” he says. “You have five minutes to find Henri and get out.”

Chapter 52

The Ghost

Leo isdead and Mariane doesn’t cry. I think she is all out of tears. Or maybe she is pretending she has a mask of her own to hide behind.

Mallary and Desmond don’t waste a second feeing the room. It is just my mother and I, alone, for the first time in… forever.

She won’t look at me. She stares at the body of her husband. He might still be alive. He looks dead enough.

“If it’s any consolation,” I say, “you probably couldn’t have avoided this.”

She doesn’t even blink, her gaze trained on the writhing floor.

I always imagined this day would come, in some form or fashion. I dreamed about it, especially in the beginning—making them hurt just as much as I did. Those first few months, understanding there was something decaying inside of me, and my imprisonment was my atonement. I could not hurt anyone if they trapped me behind a locked door. At least, that’s what they said.

“For a while, I tried.” My voice is too loud, echoing in the otherwise empty room. “I tried to be good. To be what you wanted. I really did.”

Leo’s crumpled form stares with unseeing eyes up at the gilded ceiling. Surrounded by opulence that couldn’t save him. Hours ago, this room filled with those he called friends, and some who were enemies.

The snakes coil around his limbs, tongues darting out to a chorus of hissing. Pity he didn’t get to make his choice.

“Can you blame me?” I say it out loud, maybe by accident. He’s lucky I didn’t strangle him in his sleep sooner.

I reach down and let one of the snakes wind around my wrist. Its scales are soft like silk.