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That’s when things came back to me with a rush. Gabriel and Rafael were in danger from someone—Moreau and Victorine, Slayers, Inc., maybe even my father. Moreau had let me go, but only to stake my father.
I had to get to New York, had to save them.
I tried to stand but couldn’t. My whole body shook, and my legs felt like wet noodles. I couldn’t walk, so I crawled. When I reached the ladder, I dragged myself up the rungs, one by one.
I was halfway up when I lost my grip and slid down a rung. I shoved my arm through the space between two rungs and hung on, breathing hard. The room swooped around me, and my heartbeat boomed in my ears like I’d climbed a fucking cliff instead of the first four rungs of a ladder.
I gritted my teeth and started up again. First the rung I’d slipped on, then the next and the next. I think I knew it was hopeless—I’d never be able to lift the heavy slab—but I had to try.
I reached the top. I braced my feet on the ladder’s rungs and used both my hands to push against the slab. It barely budged. I strained against the rough stone, heart pounding, sweat running down my face.
But I was too weak.
I lost it then, beating on the slab with my fists.
I no longer saw the slab, I saw the faces of the S.O.B.s who’d attacked and tortured me.
I was punching Étan’s face. The faces of the guards who’d fastened me to a wall with no food or blood or sleep. And most of all, Philippe Moreau’s sly rat-face.
The one face I didn’t want to pound to a bloody pulp was Reaper’s. Maybe that was because I had a bad case of Stockholm syndrome, but I didn’t think so. It was because in her own stony-faced way, she was the only straight shooter in the group. Yeah, she might still stake me, but she wouldn’t torture me first. She’d clearly been appalled at how Moreau and his lair had treated me.
The metallic scent of my own blood brought me to my senses. I stopped battering at the slab. I stared at my bloody knuckles, then slumped over the ladder’s top rung, chest jerking.
“Don’t get mad. Get even.” That was my brother Gabriel talking.
“Fuck off,” I told the empty room.
But just like that, I was eleven again at a gathering of local covens with my family. A couple of vampire spawn had pretended to be my friends, but as soon as they had me alone, they’d turned on me and laid into me with their fists. One of them broke my nose.
My big brother had appeared and dragged them off me. He’d pushed my broken nose back into place and stopped me from running to my father.
“He won’t help. He’ll just tell you to toughen up.”
“Yeah. Bastard.” I spat out the word, then shot a guilty look around in case an adult had heard.
“He only wants what’s best for us.” At thirteen, Gabriel had already been a leader; calm, controlled and fucking logical. Sometimes Rafe and I played tricks on him just to see if we could get him to break, but we both looked up to him. I’d have done anything to win Gabriel’s approval.
I fisted my hands. “He thinks I’m too soft, and you know it.”
“I also know he’s wrong.”
Nine-year-old Rafe ran up. “Ew, Zaq. What happened to your nose?”
Gabriel tugged at Rafe’s curly brown hair. Rafe was the pretty one; it was his curse, whereas mine was a soft heart—at least, it was a curse according to my father and his lieutenant Tomas.
“None of your business,” said Gabriel.
Rafe set his mouth and folded thin arms over his chest. “Mom’s going to be pissed off at you for fighting.”
I growled. “Let her be mad.” I started after the spawn.
Gabriel grabbed my arm, pulling me to a halt.
My brain went dark. It was too much after the beating those bastards had given me. I bared my fangs at Gabriel. “Let. Me. Go.”
His good-looking face was serious, his eyes cold beneath his peaked black brows. “Cool down, you ass.”
“Fuck you.” I tried to jerk my arm away, but he held on.
