Page 92 of The Monsters Within

I wanted to hide in my room until everyone had left. But I knew Val wouldn’t leave until they found Amber. Cash said she had sent the Nyght Nymphs away. At least I didn’t have to face them. Yet.

Cash tried to remind me that the hard part was over. I had told Val what had happened.

But that wasn’t the hard part. The hard part would come when she asked me why I hadn’t told her. Why I hadn’t trusted her. And I would have to tell her the truth. That she forgot me. That her real daughter meant more to her than I did.

I didn’t blame Val. I actually understood now. It took years for me to forgive her. But the truth was, I had nothing to forgive her for.

She may have saved my life and raised me, but she wasn’t my mom. I didn’t call her mom like Thorne did with Sam.

She was my president.

She didn’t owe me anything more than that.

I didn’t even blame her for not noticing the signs. I’d hidden them well. The monsters were good at what they did.

I walked slowly down the hall. The sound of King’s voice boomed throughout the clubhouse, and I wondered who he was yelling at.

“YOU HAD NO FUCKING RIGHT TO DO WHAT YOU DID!”

“She is my sister,” Thorne’s angry voice answered. “I had every fucking right.”

I hurried my steps and gasped when I stepped into the room. Thorne stood in the middle, King in his face. Cash stood back, and when he saw me, he held out his hand. I ignored the looks of everyone else and went straight to him. He pulled me close and held me tight.

In his arms I could breathe. It amazed me every time how just the feel of him calmed everything in me. The parts that wanted to hide, the parts that wanted to rage, and scream and cry.

I think it was the knowledge that whatever I needed to do, he would hold me while I did it.

“You do as you’re fucking told,” King growled.

“No one told me I couldn’t kill her.”

King seethed at my brother. Val stepped up and placed a hand on King’s arm. “Mimic’s right. As her brother, it was his kill.”

“She has an old man,” King pointed out.

“And he was where he should have been, taking care of Kytten. I was Syrena’s president. I have no issue with Kytten’s brother taking her out,” Val said.

“He should have fucking waited,” King argued.

“Maybe—”

“It wasn’t just Rose,” Thorne interrupted.

Every sound in the bar vanished with Thorne’s declaration. Even the air felt like it had been sucked out of the room. My knees buckled beneath me, and if it hadn’t been for Cash’s arms around me, I would have hit the floor.

“What?” I whispered, not able to fully ask the question. I didn’t want to know the answer. I wanted Thorne to be lying. I prayed he was making things up to excuse what he did.

“What do you mean?” Val asked, slowly turning to face my brother.

“I was content to let her die slowly. The way she was breathing and clutching her chest, I’m pretty sure Melissa busted a rib and punctured her lung.”

“Good!” Melissa called out.

“Not now, Princess,” Ghost said behind her.

Thorne didn’t falter. His eyes were on King. “I’d planned to watch her die. But she wouldn’t shut her fucking mouth. Rose wasn’t the only one.” He took a deep breath. “I know I should have come to get you. She should have been questioned. But there was something about the way she said it. Like she was proud no one ever knew. I thought about what the Nyght Nymphs do and who they save.”

Thorne cleared his throat. His next words were an arrow to my heart. I could have stopped it. I could have saved countless others if I had just said something.