AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Hunter got in on the passenger side and frowned when none of the others followed, instead taking up position on either side of the door. “They’re not coming with?”
“Weren’t you just saying you aren’t useless and can handle yourself?” Corbi pulled the hovercar onto the street and started east.
“Yeah, but,” he glanced over his shoulder as they headed away from the club, a twisted feeling settling in his gut, “this doesn’t seem right. Snow really told you to take me alone? What if we’re ambushed on the way to this safehouse? Which,” he turned back to her, “where is that, exactly?”
Why was he getting a sense of déjà vu?
Tendrils of smoke drifted off the side of the club, and Hunter caught sight of them in the rearview mirror. Oddly, that helped ease some of his nerves. All of this had happened pretty fast, and now that he had a moment to sit and think, he’d started questioning things. But there really was a fire and Odin had gone to check on it so…
“I spoke with Vetle,” Corbi said cryptically all of a sudden.
“Okay?”
“Did you mean it?”
“…Mean what?”
She took a sharp turn but was careful with the hovercar, clearly trying not to draw attention to them as they traveled. Since it made sense there would be others fleeing from the club—guests and employees who had nothing to do with the fighting—Hunter didn’t think she needed to be nearly as subtle as she was being, but what did he know.
“You suggested playing bait.” She didn’t look at him as she said it, but the uncertainty was obvious.
And so was that coil of unease still unraveling in Hunter’s gut.
“Corbi, I got into this car with you because you said it was an order from Odin.”
“We found your sister,” the topic changes were rapid-fire, and it was hard to gauge if that was by chance or by design. Was she trying to distract him while they made their getaway?
And what, exactly were they getting away from, because it was starting to seem a lot less like it was the Frost Brumal and more like…
“Where are you taking me?” he asked, trying to keep his internal fears from showing on either his face or in his tone. He was a suspicious person by nature, and all of this could just be a misunderstanding on his part because of that.
“Are you listening?” She gripped the steering wheel. “I know where Meg is.”
“Yes, I got that part. Where is she? Are we going there now?”
“She’s dead, Thorn.”
He was quiet for a moment, allowing that to sink in. Even though he’d made peace with her betrayal and understood on some level it wasn’t her fault to begin with, he expected there to be more of a reaction on his part. It sucked and he was sad. But he didn’t feel the hot press of tears or feel like his throat was closing up on him like he had the first time he’d heard that his sister was dead.
“Where is she?” he repeated, a bit more somber, but still not entirely sure what was happening or why she was telling him this now.
“She was discarded like trash. Yule managed to torture the information out of someone and we found her body dumped by the Lestial Woods. She’d been bitten all over, flesh was torn from her body. It looked like animals had gotten to her, but it was confirmed by a doctor that the damage was done by—”
“It was Isa.” Hunter sat back in the leather seat, a wave of guilt hitting him finally. He’d let on that he was a Whisper and considering they were siblings, Frost must have hoped Meg was the same.
“She must not have been like you,” Corbi said a moment later.
“The gene doesn’t present in everyone, and not nearly as common as it does in Shout progeny.” At one point he’d wondered himself whether or not Meg would have also been a Whisper if she’d lived. He wasn’t pleased now to have an answer though.
“I don’t mean to come off heartless, but it’s a good thing she wasn’t. If she had been, Frost would have used her.”
“Don’t follow that up with some bullshit about death being a mercy.” Even though he had to admit, at least silently to himself, that she wasn’t entirely wrong. He’d only been at Isa’s disposal for eight hours and look how much damage he’d undergone. He couldn’t even imagine being subjected to a lifetime of it.
Maybe it was the best outcome for her, but for him, that closed the book on any possibility of future reconciliation. For the rest of his life, that final look in her eye, the one of disinterest, would be the last he’d ever seen from her. That last encounter had painted over all of the other, better memories he’d had with her, and for that…
“Frost is going to pay.”
“On that, we’re in agreement.”
