Page 69 of Eternal Ruin

“They did. I do.”

In person, it was easier to tell when June was lying. Her fingers played with the butterfly bracelet, spinning the three-pointed charm. Kidan had taken the charmfrom Mama Anoet’s collection of silver stars and melted off two of its points to create it. And June still didn’t know their foster mother was dead. If there was any hope for them, she could never know.

“Do you want me to tell you the story?” Kidan asked slowly. She didn’t know why she was offering when June had betrayed and barely acknowledged her since coming to Uxlay. “About the binds?”

It always helped with her fear of vampires.

For a moment, her sister almost smiled. “I don’t think that’ll help.”

“Okay, so you want to sit—”

“No, I should go. Samson needs—”

“Samson needs what, exactly?” Kidan tried not to hiss. But it was difficult to hear her concern for a monster. “Do you even know what he’s done? Or do you just follow him blindly?”

A flicker of hesitance passed over June. “What are you talking about?”

“GK,” Kidan bit out, an ocean glow flooding the space. “He’s my friend and Samson took him. I’ll do everything I can to get him back but you can help, if you want. Tell me where he has him.”

This was June’s chance to make everything right. And from the shock on her face, she hadn’t known.

June retreated, eyes wide. “No, I can’t.”

Something inside Kidan withered and died. Thunderous clouds clapped in the distance, cold creeping in from the curtains and spreading to the floor.

“Just get out.” Kidan’s molars ground together.

June stared at the door, then back at Kidan. Long enough for Kidan to wish for things that were stupid. She wanted June to stay, to finally choose her above all else. Instead, June hurried away.

Kidan marched to the door and slammed it shut. The curtains jumped from the force and the rain began to pour, fat needles pounding the window relentlessly.

The house law crawled along the wall behind her vanity, drawing her attention to the present. Kidan rushed to it, staring into the golden threads.

Please, let me master this house.

The letters glared at her, unmoving. Kidan punched the wall hard enough to bleed, suppressing a grunt. When the rage inside the room began to eat at her skin, she stumbled out into the hall, sliding against the hallway floor.

GK’s voice waited for her here, drowning her in her worst fear.

His voice was thick with betrayal.

She made you a killer but you reincarnated me as a monster. How could I forgive you?

Kidan inhaled sharply, shivering with how real he sounded. As if they were standing in that crypt again, and he was muttering prayers to vanquish her like she was the devil.

She felt the hatred he held toward her, breathed it in like shards of glass every time June walked past. Every time Kidan thoughtYou are the reason my life was ruined.

GK was thinking the same thing toward Kidan.

Kidan had deluded herself into thinking she could help GK accept his new transformation. Like a venomous snake teaching the art of healing.

How could Kidan help him find his humanity when hers was in tatters?

It was shameful to even think of it. Shameful to face him without offering him what he wanted most. A chance to be human again.

Kidan was still thinking about him when her lids closed over her eyes and darkness took her into a restless sleep. This time, Kidan dreamed of a vast green land, endless stretches of grass scratching at her ankles. A girl appeared in the distance, standing before a long stone pillar. The strange girl was talking to the pillar, or rather, to a figure sitting on top of it. But before Kidan could see who it was, the grass changed into the whispering halls of Uxlay, and the ground fell beneath her feet, the awful sensation of being cast from heaven to hell following her down.

27.