Page 170 of Dance With A Devil

“I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” I mumbled, my tiny fingers curled around her shirt like lifelines.

“You’re not broken,” she whispered. “Just haunted.”

Poppa knelt beside us, wiping his eyes before smirking like he didn’t just cry in front of me. “No more timeouts. Big girls don’t need those.”

I reached up and touched his face, catching his tears like a secret. “Don’t cry, Poppa. Everything’s alright now.”

They smiled.

But smiles lie.

“I can do better. I’ll be good,” I promised, kissing them both before racing upstairs.

But I didn’t make it far.

Their voices floated up the stairwell, low, tense, surgical.

“She’s resisting,” Mom said. “The methods should’ve worked by now. Her mind’s fighting me.”

“She’s different,” Dad murmured. “Holding on to the trauma while pretending she’s not.”

“She’s not like the others. She’s his child. That blood... it doesn’t forget. Not easily.”

And just like that… The memory shattered.

And the next wave hit me like a freight train.

“He’s the one who had them killed.”

“No!” I scream, the sound ripping out of my throat like it’s coated in barbed wire. “Gaia,tell me it’s not true!Tell me Bash didn’t have my parents murdered!”

Her silence says everything before her mouth does.

“He did.” Her voice is calm, but it’s the kind of calm that comes right before a building explodes. “And that’s just the beginning, Athens. There’s more. A lot more. And you’re about to find out exactly what the fuck that man’s been hiding.”

My stomach knots like it’s trying to strangle itself. “How do you know?”

“Haven’t I always told you I hated his fucking guts?”

She had. Over and over. I just didn’t listen.

“I don’t have solid proof yet, so don’t lose your shit,” she adds, reading the fury on my face. “But that night, the night you were getting all dolled up for your ‘date’ with that lying bastard and we were on our way to the Devils of Cliffside party, I heard him.”

“What did you hear?”

“Him. On the phone. Bragging that he’s had people killed before and wouldn’t hesitate to do it again. The fucker sounded bored. Like murder was just another Tuesday.”

“That doesn’t mean,” My voice cracks. “that doesn’t mean he was talking aboutmyparents, does it?”

Gaia doesn’t answer.

I step back. The floor tilts beneath me. “Gaia, I’m so sorry. I should’ve believed you. I-I don’t even know how to fix this.”

“You can’t,” she says simply. “But I’m here, aren’t I?”

“Yeah… yeah, you are. I’ll never doubt you again.”

“Good. Because there’s more.”