Page 80 of Gray Dawn

Dad advanced on me, cutting off my escape with blasts of power that herded me where he wanted me. I led him farther from Blay and Colby, and the Mayhews, trying to protect them, but he was too fast. I couldn’t touch him to cast on him, and the only way that would change was if…

No.

No, no, no.

The Hunk was not an option. The Maudit Grimoire was not a savior. They couldn’t do this for me.

I had to save myself.

A blue streak dried the spit from my mouth as Mom broke from her stasis.

This was about to get ugly.

Summoning my wings, I prepared for takeoff, but suddenly she was there.

Right in front of me.

What do I do? What do I do? What do I do?

Hurt one, I hurt the other. Kill one, I killed them both.

How did we all get out of this alive?

“Circle back, baby.” Her eyes were wide…and clear. Had she been playing along? Did that mean Dad was okay too? I couldn’t tell, and I couldn’t afford to guess wrong. “Run toward Luca.”

“Mom?”

The second of connection came and went too fast for me to second-guess her. I did what she told me. I spun on my heel, praying this wasn’t a trick. I aimed for Luca, bobbing and weaving to obscure the method to my madness.

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” I muttered to myself, evading Mom as she herded me with feints.

As we drew closer to Luca, she shifted her weight, eyeing us with burgeoning concern.

Beside her, the director had begun to smile, and it was an ugly thing.

Sharp. Predatory. Knowing.

Just before I would have bowled Luca over, I cut left. But Dad kept going. He collided with her, knocking her back, and he rode her down. He landed on top of her, and quicker than she couldorder the director to help, he drew his athame and stabbed her through the heart.

“This…isn’t…over…” Her lips trembled. “The humans…”

Blood slid from one corner of her mouth, and her body trembled with her struggle to hold on to life.

“Allow me to return to my post,” the director said to Dad, a gleam in his eyes. “I can set things back to rights. All can be as it was before.”

The way he didn’t look at Luca, even for a second, made me furious for his role in this all over again. That disregard of her, of her feelings, had led us here. His heartlessness had cost countless innocent lives, and he had the nerve to ask us to raise him back to a position of power.

“You’re dead.” I limped closer, my calf muscle twinging. “You don’t get to resurrect.”

“I can make it as if none of this happened,” he argued. “I can protect humans from?—”

“No.” Dad reduced Luca to ash he mixed with the soil then rose. “This won’t have been for nothing.”

“Are you going to kill me?” The director laughed, bitter and hateful. “Your own father?”

“You’re safe from me.” He had no intentions of invoking the animus vow with Mom by his side and the promise of a future together. “But I’m not the one you should be worried about.”

“Her?” He dismissed me the same as he had the day I showed up on his doorstep. “She won’t kill me.”