Page 75 of Pet: Torment

Her eyes darken, and she takes a threatening step toward me, resembling Remus more than she ever has as her hair shifts slightly. I can feel the air growing heavier around us. She’sangry. I can see it in the way her chest heaves as she tries to calm herself down. If I were any other human, I would cower before the sight. But this is the only way I can fight for Remus. I won’t be backing down because of her shame.

We stand, glaring at one another without a buffer between us. No Remus, no Ezra, no Noah or Sky. Just the two of us finally butting heads.

“Whether or not this is in my control is irrelevant. One mistake,one minuscule mistake,and your life is over. And that would be it. You are a human, Iris. Why can’t you admit you’re out of your depth?” she counters.

For some reason, I laugh. My entire life, I’ve been out of my depth, and look at where I am now. Each time I think about Remus—the life he led unknowingly, my chest aches even heavier than it did when I awoke with the bond gone.

“I guess we’re at an impasse,” I say softly. I can’t help but smile as I say it, recalling how I know the word.

“You can’t keep me hidden forever. Sooner or later, he’ll come to me,” I say, moving back to the couch. I move my arm in front of me, studying it as I recall the way he twisted my bones to get the truth from me. He’s probably been suspecting for a long time. He has no patience when it comes to getting answers.

I look at Xion. “If he does, I’m telling him the truth. I have a better chance of being killed by him for lying than I do for just standing in front of him,” I say. “At this point, I don’t care what happens to me. He deserves to know the truth. All of you do.”

I open the book, going back to the page I was reading, glad to have gotten that off my chest. Xion moves away from me, but I call to her before she leaves the room.

“I’m not the one who is the enemy, Xion. Your mother is.”

My body feels strange. Nausea hits me hard, my insides twisting and melting, and as I try to open my eyes, I am met with complete darkness. I was in bed, asleep. But now I am nowhere. I’m suffocating, I realize. As I try to reach for my throat, my arms won’t move.

Suddenly, the world appears around me. It’s startlingly bright, forcing me to blink a few times for my vision to adjust. By the time I do, the cold air hits me hard. It stings my flesh, and my feet burn from not wearing any clothes. But I recognize my surroundings. I am at Remus’s home,Llorashining bright in the atmosphere.

Unfortunately, I am outside.

“How—”

“I needed a way to speak to you without my sister’s knowledge.”

I tense, turning to see Remus in all his glory approaching me in the snow. He’s unfazed by the chill, as he always was in the past. His eyes hold no recognition for me, only calculated precision, and I feel my stomach dipping as nausea strikes me.

I fall to my knees, heaving my lunch into the snow, ignoring the burn of the cold penetrating my hands.

“Teleporting is a dangerous thing for certain creatures. If not done carefully, if you move before I can get a hold of every piece of you, some things may not make the trip. But you have more pressing matters to worry about,” he says, standing over me.

I slowly lift my head, my body already shivering from the bite of the cold. I’m wearing a thin night shirt and shorts, so it cuts through easily.

“In about five minutes, your entire body will go into shock. You’ll be dead in ten.” Remus kneels, his expression forcing me to shiver more violently as the blue within his purple gaze glows in excitement.

“I have questions for you. And I want the truth to be the only thing that leaves your lips tonight…or you will die.”

Chapter Thirty-Three

Iris

I knew Remus was going to come for me someday. I just didn’t think it would be this soon—this brutal. I wasn’t even aware that one of the abilities in Remus’s repertoire was teleportation. I see why he never used it and never told me about it. I feel sick, even if I am freezing to death. And my mind isn’t quite caught up withmy mouth yet. If it weren’t so cold, I would lie down from the vertigo that’s settling over me.

“You know me,” Remus says, not waiting for me to adjust to my surroundings.

It isn’t a question. He’s telling me. But I nod anyway, my body trembling violently from the cold as I try to keep my eyes open. My legs have gone numb, and I can’t feel my face. I think of all the times Remus scolded me for being careless about standing in this weather. He wasn’t overexaggerating when he said it would kill me if I didn’t pay attention. That time he was meditating in the snow, when I felt the force field around him, his anger now makes sense.

I want to beg for a semblance of mercy. But as he looks down on me with a cold exterior I’ve never seen on him, not even in the beginning, I close my eyes, hoping he’ll get on with the questioning.

“How?” he asks. His voice cuts through the cold.

“Y-you…t-t-took ov-v-ver m-m-my, p-p-p—”

Remus releases a breath of irritation, and I cry out as he rips me up from the ground. My skin is on fire where he touches me, but the rest of me is frozen solid. I know it hasn’t been five minutes yet, but I don’t think I’ll be able to answer any of his questions if I stay out here much longer. My lips have become so cold that it’s become difficult to say certain words.

“I’m aware of your origins. I am asking how you know me,” he growls out. The blue within his eyes burn bright as he glares at me.