Page 89 of Bad Blood

My mother’s shaking hands explored my face. “Oh, baby,” she whispered. “You got so big.”

Something broke inside of me at the sound of my mother’s voice, the expressiveness of her features, the familiarity of her touch.

“And so beautiful.” Her voice broke. “Oh, baby. No.” She jerked back. “No, no, no…You’re not supposed to be here.”

“As touching as this reunion is…” Director Sterling stood. “The task remains unchanged.”

My mother tried to take a step back from me, but I wouldn’t let her. I lowered my voice—too low for the watching Masters to hear. “They can’t make us do this.”

Her gaze went hollow. “They can make you do anything.”

My eyes went to the scars on her arms, her chest—every inch of exposed skin, except for her face. Some were smooth. Some were puckered. Some were healing still.

In the stands, Malcolm Lowell stood. One by one, the Masters followed suit.

I bent to pick my knife up off the ground. We could fight—not all of them, and maybe not for long, but it was better than the alternative.

“I don’t want this,” my mom said. “For you.”

The scars. The pain. The role of the Pythia.

“My team will find us.” I channeled Lia and willed those words to sound true. “Wherever this place is, they won’t stop looking. They’ll figure out that the director is working against them. We just have to buy them time.”

My mom stared at me, and I realized that even though shewasthe person who’d raised me and loved me and made me what I was, I still couldn’t read her, not the way I could anyone else. I didn’t know what she was thinking. I didn’t know what she had been through—not really.

I didn’t know what it meant when she nodded.

What are you saying yes to?

The sound of a door opening and shutting alerted me to the return of Malcolm Lowell.I didn’t even know he left. When I saw what he’d gone to fetch, I stopped breathing.

Laurel.

She was born to take Malcolm’s place, to be the next Nine. And now, he had his hands on her shoulders. He shoved her toward Director Sterling, who grasped Laurel by the arm.

I saw now what my mother had meant.

They can make you do anything.

The director slid a knife out of his own pocket. “You fight,” he said, holding the blade to Laurel’s throat, “or she dies.”

The director didn’t wait for a response before he began to cut. Just a little. Just a warning. Laurel didn’t scream. She didn’t move. But the high-pitched mewling that came out of her throat hit me like a physical blow.

“How sure are you that your team will find you?” My mother bent down to pick up her own blade. “We’re halfway to the desert, in the middle of nowhere, underground. If they dig into Malcolm’s past, if they go back far enough, they might see a pattern, but most people wouldn’t.”

Dean. Michael. Lia. Sloane.

“I’m sure,” I said. “Wherever we are, they’ll find us.”

My mother nodded. “Okay.”

“Okay?” I repeated.What are you saying?

She advanced on me. “We have to fight. Laurel’s just a baby, Cassie. She’s you, and she’s me, and she’sours. Do you understand?”

They can make you do anything.

“You have to kill me.” My mother’s words sliced into me, ice-cold and uncompromising.