I narrow my eyes. “What about her?”
The doors of the elevator ding softly, but I don’t take my eyes off Alaric as he lifts his chin. “I’ll tell you where she is if I walk free.”
I weigh my options as snowflakes pepper the air around us. The odds that Alaric is just throwing Heidi out as a bluff are extremely high. He knows how protective I am of her. And whether I like it or not, the odds that Heidi has actually survived this long with everything going on are…
Low. Nauseatingly low.
Heidi isn’t a fighter like most legacies are born to be. For one thing, she’s a type four empath, which is the most extreme and rare level of empathic abilities. I was relieved when my sweet, sunshiney sister finally admitted to me she would rather never attend Everbound and instead pretend to be a human.
During the Upheaval, she would have struggled to defend herself on account of the skittish, non-predator animal living inside her.
But even though it's unlikely, if there’s a chance she survived and could be out there…
I glare at Alaric, moving the point of my sword to hover beside his ear. “Forget walking free. You’ll tell me where she is or?—”
“Orwhat?”my father spits, still shaking and gripping his chest where his heart hurts. “As you pointed out, your sick, twisted keeper already took my quintet away. I have no safe haven left. If you kill me, you’ll never know where she is. There is nothing you can threaten me with, you hideous fucking disgrace.”
Someone growls nearby. That confuses me enough to barely glance over and realize that Baelfire, Crypt, Silas, and Mavenhave ventured into this frozen penthouse. Baelfire is the one growling, his teeth bared at Alaric. Silas is staring at the bare wall like it’s the biggest danger in the room, and Crypt is holding…fingers?
Oh, right. That freak made a promise to Maven. Gross.
Meanwhile, Maven’s dark eyes are on my father, angry and unforgiving, but it’s like an anvil lifts off my chest. Fucking gods above, I just can’t breathe whenever I’m not around her. Remembering her tied to that stake, ridiculed and filmed and laughed at as gasoline was poured over her head?—
Searing anger makes me turn back to Alaric and swipe my sword.
His ear comes off. He screams.
I leave his other one intact so that he’ll hear my furious demand. “Where is she?”
“I–I won’t tell you,” he chokes out. “Frosts do not?—”
I slash across my father’s other cheek, and he howls, clutching his ruined face. Tired of this slow process, I toss aside the sword and haul my father up by his blood-soaked lapels, slamming him against the frost-patterned glass wall overlooking the gray cityscape outside.
“Last chance,” I warn him, years of anger at the way they mistreated my sister welling inside me. Despite the debilitant they gave me, frost begins to climb steadily up my forearms as my curse reacts to my anger.
Alaric coughs blood in my face on purpose, trying to distract me. Past me would have fallen for it, but if he thinks blood is going to put me off now, it means he’s not getting the fucking message. Releasing one of his lapels, I slam my elbow into Alaric’s face, satisfied with the crack of his nose as he shouts in pain again.
“You’re right. I can’t threaten your quintet or your safe haven, so it’s a good thing you still have what you really careabout—your own damn hide,” I point out. “You think I’d let you walk away after you fuckingbroadcastedhumiliating my keeper? No. You have two choices. Tell me where my sister is, and I’ll make it quick. Keep annoying the hell out of me, and I’ll drag this on, kill you anyway, and rip this entire place apart until I find clues—and I know there will be something, becauseFrosts always keep impeccable records,” I mock his voice.
He glares at me, but it’s unimpressive thanks to the blood, gashes, and pain all over his face. “You’re really going to kill me? Your own father? You son of a bitch.”
“Yeah, well, it’s not my fault Mom was a bitch. Now choose.”
Alaric seethes for a long moment before looking defeated. Maybe it’s from losing his quintet, or maybe it’s because I bested him, but his shoulders slouch as he stares at me.
“She showed up over a month ago, looking for safety. It’s the way of legacies and Frosts to cull the weak, and we couldn’t have her weakening our safe haven.”
“What the hell does that—” I begin.
“We turned her away—her and that little human friend of hers who brought her here. They were left to the fiends outside my safe haven to fend for themselves.”
Horror and fury hit me so hard and fast that I freeze up as his words sink in.
He turned her away.
My parents fucking turned their own daughter away.
If Heidi had been desperate enough to come to my parents looking for safety, they would have treated her as they always have—like someone with no significant value. She’s not a powerful legacy, and my mother, being the appearance-obsessed woman she’s always been, wouldn’t have wanted people here to find out Heidi was their daughter.
