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“Even then I knew I was different. My parents didn’t understand me. The future lawmakers never understood me. Only you, Brad. You knew exactly what I wanted and needed. Sometimes I dream about how you used to tie me—”
“Damn it, Wendy!”
“Our son was conceived in love.” She glanced to me. “You do know that, don’t you? I was bound for your father’s pleasure when he planted the seed that became you.”
“Wendy!”
She turned back toward my father’s voice, laughing. “Oh, you knew me, Brad. You destroyed me, and I let you. I coveted you. We were soul mates. But you never figured out the symbol.”
“It’s the symbol for evil,” I said. “The devil.” I pointed to Mathias’s now motionless body, blood seeping all over the hardwood floor. “He figured it out. So did Larry Wade. And so did we.”
“Of course you would, my brilliant son.” She smiled—a sickeningly sweet smile, right out of a slasher flick. “I contorted it a little, but at its center was the symbol for female…and the symbol for evil. But it’s also the symbol for copper. Do you know why that makes sense?”
No one spoke. I looked around. Jade was holding on to Talon. Joe’s eyes moved back and forth. He was planning something. If I could take my mother down, get that gun away from—
“Copper is a soft metal, you know. Soft, like a female. Not hard like iron. Like a male.”
I gathered my courage. My father might be shot in the process, but—
“And copper turns green. Green, the color of envy and jealousy.” She smiled again. “I never was good at sharing. I always envied others who had what I wanted. So I took things. I made people do things to suit my purposes. But it was never enough. Never enough, Brad, because I never really had you. I could have forced you to be with me long ago. We both know that. But I didn’t. I wanted you to come to me, to admit the truth about our connection. That we were always meant to be together.” Her fingers tensed around the firearm. “I’m done waiting. Now I will finally have what is mine. You and I are going to be together, Brad. The two of us and our son. One way or the other.”
Panic shredded through me. She truly was crazy. Not that I’d ever doubted that revelation. But then—
The memory…
“Never. I’ll never believe that. You’ll pay for this, Brad. I swear to God you’ll pay.”
What she’d said after that emerged into my mind. I could hear her say the words in the voice I now knew as I pressed my ear to my bedroom door.
“You and I are going to be together, Brad. The two of us and our son. One way or the other.”
My father was no longer enough for her. She wanted us both.
I suppressed a shudder as my skin chilled around me like a cloak of ice.
She turned to me slightly, still holding the gun at my father. “It’s your choice, my beautiful son. Either we’re all together in this life…or the next. What will it be?”
“I’m not sure”—my voice cracked—“what you mean.” In reality, I had an inkling of exactly what she meant. My heart thundered, and a wave of sickness traveled through me.
“Darling, you’re not a simpleton. You’re the son of two geniuses. You know very well what I mean. You choose. Do you and I and your father stay together here, without the rest of these people, or do the three of us go together into the next life?”
My blood pulsed in my head like a freight train. Was she truly asking me to choose whether my siblings or I lived?
No.
I’d just found happiness with Ruby.
But Talon was healing. Joe and Melanie were having a baby. Marjorie was young, so young, only twenty-five years old.
My father was dying anyway, and Wendy’s life wasn’t worth anything to anyone.
But my life…
Damn it, I wanted my life! I wanted a life with Ruby, with our children, with my brothers and sister. My true siblings, even if I’d been borne to this lunatic.
“Wendy,” my father interjected. “I will go with you into the next life. Our son deserves a life here. Don’t put him through this.”
“Why not? It’s time to find out where his loyalty lies.”
“You’re asking him to choose between his own life and his siblings. It’s not fair.”
“What if the three of us go off somewhere together?” I said, the words coming out rapid and jumbled. “You don’t have to kill my brothers and my sister. We can keep them away from us. You guys will leave us alone, right?”
“O-Of course,” Marjorie stammered. “Won’t we?”
My two brothers and Jade said nothing. Even Joe was speechless, his face pale and his eyes…something different about his eyes, something I’d never seen before. Fear. He was scared.
