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“Something’s coming!” Zee yells, stepping back as he prepares to fight.
“Thad! Get back!” Gage yells when I go to slice Sadie’s throat.
I knew it was her. I knew she was behind it. Only she could be involved with something this—
My thoughts are cut off when I’m launched backward, slamming into Zee with enough force to knock the breath out of me. Zee launches red orbs at air, as though he’s seeking our invisible attacker.
I expect maniacal laughter to spill out of Sadie’s throat, but she looks as horrified as us.
“NO!” she yells. “They’ll kill you. Don’t!”
The fuck?
Before any answers can come, the sky darkens, clouding up as something big gets closer. The trees bow and groan against the force of the wind as the rain starts pummeling down against us.
“Please don’t!” Sadie yells again to the wind.
My eyes land on an anointed crossbow, and I roll over to it, grabbing it and aiming it at Sadie. Just as I fire, a body materializes, redirecting the trajectory of my arrow at it flies back to stab the tree right beside my head.
Gage gasps as we all look at the same person in disbelief.
Roslyn.
Her eyes are brighter than ever before, furious as they shine their mismatched powers, and the wind blows harder, swirling her hair around her as her nails extend.
“How could you?!” she yells, tears in her eyes as she blocks us from view of Sadie.
The wind howls as the trees start to snap, and the storm stirs harder. She’s doing this? Fucking shit.
“Roslyn, move! I told you what was going to happen,” I tell her, but she shoves me against a tree with an invisible force so strong that I can’t fight it off.
She backs up as her eyes narrow into slits, and Gage exchanges a look with me and Zee, all of us confused as hell.
“Roslyn, you don’t know what she’s capable of. She’s—”
“She’s my mother!” she yells on a choked sob, interrupting me and destroying everything I thought I knew up until this point.
A sick feeling invades my stomach as the chains break around Sadie’s hands, something Roslyn can do without even touching them. Sadie’s too weak to stand, and blood is still pouring out of her wounds—wounds I helped make.
“How could you?!” Roslyn barks again, glaring at me as tears rush down her face.
“She kept Kimber in the rings, Roslyn,” Gage says softly, as though he’s trying to calm her down.
Roslyn’s eyes cut to him, and he yelps in pain when he’s forced to the ground, unable to even lift his head. Zee tries to stand, but he’s quickly pinned just as efficiently, while I stay trapped against the tree, feeling like there’s a truck pressed against my chest.
“Twenty years ago? You have no idea what she’s been through—no idea what she went through! She saved everyone in the rings because she’s good now. And you’re wanting to persecute her for sins from the past? Is that how it works? It wasn’t her; it was Hilly! My mother did what she had to in order to survive. Just like I did.”
Sadie weakly reaches for Roslyn as more tears fall from my girl’s eyes. I see hatred, anger, and so much pain in those mismatched, wild eyes right now.
“I didn’t know,” I say in a near whisper, trying to bring her back from the edge.
“You didn’t know?” she growls. “So it’s okay to just kill someone because you think they’re still out to get you? How many people did you hurt, Thaddeus Maximus?”
My eyes widen, and a wave of nausea hits me.
“That’s right,” she goes on. “I’ve heard stories of Thaddeus the bloody. Thaddeus the hungry killer. But I didn’t fall in love with those versions of you. Or at least I didn’t think I did. If you’d do this to her for one person…” Her words trail off as the rain begins to pelt us harder, the storm outside creating the one going on inside her. “There’s no telling what you’d do to me,” she adds in a whisper. “Slade was right.”
I push back, finally finding the strength to stand against her force, and I try to make it to her, but it feels like I’m pushing against an army.
