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"Save it!" I cut him off, rage thick in my voice. "Just save your breath. Right now, I can't decide who I despise more—the woman who gave birth to me or the asshole who played God with my mind!"
The silence was a living thing, thick and suffocating, as Ansel's plea hung in the air. I could barely digest one revelation before another sucker-punched me in the gut. How much of my life had been orchestrated by people pulling strings from the shadows? My fists clenched at my sides, nails digging into my palms.
Before anyone could answer, a strange noise pierced the tension—a low hum that seemed to vibrate through the penthouse walls. "Do you hear—" I was cut off by a thunderous explosion that rocked the foundation of the building.
The shockwave sent us flying like rag dolls. Glass shattered, and I felt myself hurtling backward before I slammed hard against something solid. Pain exploded in my shoulder, and stars danced across my vision.
"Down!" Ansel shouted over the ringing in my ears. Shards of glass and chunks of marble rained down around us. I rolled and felt the sharp bite of debris cut into my skin, a stinging reminder that this wasn’t just another nightmare.
"Everyone okay?" Kylo's voice was strained, concern laced within every syllable.
I coughed and brushed dust and splinters from my hair. I tried to push myself up, but a weight pinned me to the floor. Panic flared in my chest, a wild thing clawing its way out.
"Can't... move," I grunted and wrestled with the slab of wall that held me captive.
Then she appeared.
"Mom?" The word was a ghost on my lips.
She stood there, unfazed by the destruction, her icy gaze locked onto mine. Behind her, a SWAT team fanned out, their guns trained on us with mechanical precision.
"Hello, darling." Her voice was the same tender caress from my childhood, now twisted into something dark and mocking. "Did you miss me?"
"Miss you?" I the sound was bitter and hollow as I tried not to choke on the dust cloud in the air. "Hard to miss someone you thought was dead. You know, because they were supposed to be dead."
"Death is such a... flexible concept, isn't it?" She stepped closer and her heels clicked on the rubble-strewn floor like the ticking of a clock that counted down my final seconds.
"Your sarcasm won't save you."
"Neither will your SWAT team," Oswin chimed in like a fucking jester even with guns pointed at his head. "We've survived worse parties than this."
"Bravery or stupidity?" she mused aloud and her eyes narrowed. "I always did wonder."
"Let's call it a family trait," I shot back and struggled against the weight on my chest.
"Family," she echoed a smirk played on her lips. "Such a quaint notion. But we're beyond pretenses now, aren't we?"
"Beyond?" I wheezed. "Lady, we're so far beyond, we can't even see the line anymore."
She reached into her jacket, and the world seemed to slow as she drew a gun, leveling it at me with dispassionate ease.
"Mom, wait—" My plea was cut short.
"Silence," she hissed, her finger tightening on the trigger. It was the coldness in her eyes that scared me the most—not anger, not hatred, just an icy void where love should have been.
I'd faced death more times than I could count, but staring down the barrel held by my own mother, that was a new kind of hell. My heart hammered against my ribcage. Each beat screamed that this wasn't how it was supposed to go down.
"Always with the dramatics," I managed, my voice cracking like a teenager's.
"Goodbye, Averill."
And then Kylo lunged. His arm swung wide, and a glint of steel sliced through the chaos. His knife buried deep into her stomach with a sickening squish, crimson blooming out like a deadly flower.
"Kylo!" I screamed, half in horror, half in relief.
"Go! Move!"
Oswin wasted no time. He grabbed my arm, pulling me from the debris with a strength that defied his slender frame. Gunshots rang out as bullets whizzed past us and embedded into walls and shattered glass.
