Page 78 of Behind the Shadows

I stumbled back, the breath knocked out of me while my head refused to believe her lies. “We call him the Pied Piper.”

The name hit me cold, but it was unfamiliar, meaningless. But the way she said it, like a hymn, like a curse, like she was tasting it on her tongue. It made my fucking skin crawl.

“I don’t—” My brow arched. “I don’t know who that is.”

“No, you wouldn’t, would you? You were small the last time you saw him.” She shifted slightly, making a faint sound from the oxygen machine.

“The Pied Piper isn’t a man most people meet. He’s a shadow. A whisper in your nightmare. A cruel promise in the dark.” Her gaze flicked up to mine, slicing straight through me. “He plays his music, and we all follow.”

A shudder ran down my spine, something black curling under my skin.

Kip’s mother’s voice dropped to a reverent whisper.

“Your mother was one of them. And you—you were his little accident.”

My knees locked. My hands shook around my weapon.

“When she betrayed him, he took you,” she revealed. “Because he could. Because it proved he was untouchable. Because it proved to the rest of us that blood meant nothing to him.”

The room blurred, my vision splintering at the edges. “No …”

“Oh, yes,” she murmured. “He gave you up like a tithe, a little red-haired offering. And Ally … oh, poor Ally. She was simply collateral, in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

My chest squeezed tight, threatening to cut off my air supply.

“Who is my mother? Is she alive?” The words tasted bitter on my tongue, but I had to know.

Kip’s mother tilted her head, assessing me. “You look like her. Or you did. She’s gone. You don’t betray the Pied Piper and live to talk about it.”

A whisper of sadness passed through me, but I would digest that information later when I had time to wrap my head around it.

Kip’s mother tilted her head. “Did you ever wonder why you’re so angry? Why you fight so hard? Why you survived when you should’ve died?” Her smile curled. “It’s in your cells, your DNA.” She pointed to the front of the house. “It’s time for you to go, Samantha,” she whispered, her words fading like the last thread of a hymn. “You have so much to learn.”

My brain rejected the idea that a killer was my father, shoved it away, but it scraped at the walls inside my skull. Bile scorched my throat as my vision blurred, black stars crowding the edges.

I’m his.

I wanted to rip the blood from my body. I wanted to cut his legacy out of my skin. I wanted to burn everything and everyone down.

But mostly—I wanted to never, ever have been born. A serial killer!

Running from the room, I rushed outside. I stumbled down the steps, heart jackhammering in my chest, skin crawling like something was slithering right under the surface. The afternoon light cut at my vision, hot and sharp and too bright.

She’s lying. She always lies.

My feet hit the gravel. My hands fumbled for the car door but missed the handle once, twice. A strangled cry tore from my throat.

She’s a manipulator. She’s poison. She’s Kip’s mother, and she wants to hurt me, hurt him.

I yanked the car door open, collapsed into the driver’s seat, and yanked the belt across my lap.

She’s lying. She’s lying, she’s lying.

Under my ribs, something old and buried was screaming.

The engine purred to life, but I didn’t drive. I sat there, fists clenched on the wheel, forehead pressed hard against it, while I stopped myself from marching back in there and killing the fucking bitch. But I couldn’t. Not yet. I needed more from her before she met her maker—the devil himself.

And the reality was … I knew.