Page 72 of Twisted

“You will find their corpses, because they are dead!”

“I asked to find my blood.Corpses don’t have blood.”

Xavier steps in.“I am trying to protect you, Wren.”

“Keeping the truth from me is hurting, not helping.”

“You are impossible,” he snarls, fangs coming down.He takes the book from me and turns, going to the counter and loudly setting the book down.“Fine.Have it your way.”He comes back, stopping just inches from me.Electricity radiates off of him, pulsing through me.“Your name is Florence Blackwood.”

I gasp.Vivian was telling the truth.Which means my parents are alive.They have to be.

“Your mother was Felicity Blackwood and your father was David Walker.He took your mother’s last name because the Blackwood line of witches was more respected.Your mother’s younger sister—your aunt—Francine, was with them in Italy at the time the Order of the Mystic Realm gave Vivian and Marco Russo the order to kill everyone in their way so they could get to you.You weren’t born in Italy, but your family was vacationing there at the time.The Order thought it would be easier to catch everyone off guard while they were out enjoying Rome and having a good time.Marco fired the first shot and put a bullet in your father’s head from a rooftop across the street.”He raises his eyebrows.“Want me to keep going?”

My body has gone numb.No, this isn’t what happened.Vivian and Marco might have taken me, but they didn’t slaughter my family to do so.They couldn’t.

“My parents are alive,” I say again.

“They’re not, Wren.”Xavier brushes my hair back and wipes away a tear I didn’t realize had run down my cheek.“I am sorry to have to be the one to tell you this.Your parents and your aunt are dead.They’ve been dead for nearly twenty-five years.”

“Why me?”I ask, voice breaking.“Why…why would the Order?”I shake my head, refusing to believe it.There has to be someone in my direct line then that caused the spell to work.Someone alive.

“I don’t know,” Xavier says gently.“Knowing the Order, it was strategic more than personal.”

Feeling like I might pass out, I put a hand on Xavier’s chest and close my eyes.His hand lands on the small of my back, bringing me comfort.I want to believe him.I want to trust him.More than anything, I want to have a person that is a true ride or die, being the loyal and loving partner to me that I know I can be to them.

But this doesn’t make sense.

The locator spell was specifically done to show me my parents.And it did.

* * *

“Hey,”Mabel says, softly knocking on my doorframe.I’m sitting on my bed, flipping through the book.“You okay?”

She doesn’t need to tell me that she overheard everything that was said only a few moments ago.Vampire hearing is ten times better than humans and she easily heard every single word that was spoken even if she wasn’t intentionally listening.

“Yeah.I think so.”

“It’s okay to not be okay sometimes,” she says and comes into the room.

“I know.I guess I’ve been trained to not show emotions because it can be seen as a sign of weakness.”

“Not letting yourself feel anything is the real sign of weakness.You’re avoiding what’s scary because it’s easier to just ignore those feelings than deal with them.”

“You’re right,” I tell her.“That’s a good quote, actually.”

“Is it?Should I write it down?”

“Yeah.You should.”

She grabs her phone and quickly adds that to her notes app.“Hey, our pic from last night gotsomany likes!Want to see?”

Smiling, I nod and spend the next few minutes looking through Mabel’s Instagram account.It seems the majority of her followers are interested in seeing what it’s like to be a rich vampire, but there are a ton of comments saying she’s surprisingly relatable.

“You said that was my first kill last night,” Mabel says, abruptly changing the subject.“It wasn’t.”

“I meant the first demon kill.”

“I killed the first person I drank from,” she tells me and casts her eyes down.“I didn’t mean to.I bit him too hard and the bleeding wouldn’t stop.”