“You killed him, I presume.” My eyebrow still raised, my fingers tightening, pressing indentations into her pale skin. “This unknown man.”
Penelope scoffs, and I hear Rune snort behind me, but I don't turn, keeping my sole attention on Nellie.
“You think I brought you into this house, myhome, so you could get up in the night and murder innocent passers-by?”
“He wasn't innocent,” she seethes in a whisper, baring her teeth. “And he wasn't a passer-by, he was hiding in the shadows,” she pauses, heaving in a deep breath, filling her lungs. “He attackedme,” she hisses, “because ofyou.” Her hand comes up, nails cutting into the back of my hand as she grabs hold of my wrist, both of our hands on her neck. “You brought me into this…homeand left me for dead. Is that how this fuckingcultworks?”
I grab her tighter, slamming her into the wall at her back, the air knocking from her lungs with the force.
“My family is not acult.” I gnash my teeth at her, nipping the skin of her cheek.
I press my face into the side of hers, my nose digging into her cheekbone, her pupil dilating as she looks at me from the corner of her eye. My vision blurring with our closeness, I breathe herin, her rose scent filling my lungs, and I exhale hard, her body shivering as my breath washes over her bare shoulder.
“Watch your language, Penelope,” I kiss the words into her skin, my lips almost sucking as I draw just slightly back, enough to see her more clearly. “Now,” I lick my lips, grazing my teeth over my bottom lip before letting it pop free, her eyes flicking down briefly to watch, “tell me what you did, Little Lamb.”
It’s not what I expect.
The scene before me.
Thomas Avery, one of my father's most trustedpotentialscarved up on the floor of an empty parlour, statues covered with large white dust sheets dotted around the room, revealed only by the torchlight each of us carries.
“Is my presence here really necessary?” Bram drawls, boredom dripping from every word.
Bram’s blue eyes barely flick over the butchered body lying before us, each of us from the kitchen spread out around it, Penelope tucked tightly into my side, before he turns his attention up to the ceiling instead.
Nobody speaks, everyone slowly turning their attention to Gore.
But it’s not Gore that whispered words come from, despite the parting of his lips, instead, it’s Dolly’s voice that emerges from the shadows, “We dispose of him, and say nothing.” It haunts the room, the way her words, both strong and frail, echo through the space, her pale face illuminated as simultaneously each torch beam finds her.
Her tall, curvy body draped in white silk fabric, ruching and pleats pulling it in at the waist, she moves like a phantom, feet whispering along the floor, drawing her in closer and closer.
“Us girls can clean this up,” she says quietly, lucidly, without looking at her husband, her eyes come to mine briefly, quickly dropping to the woman at my side. “Can’t we, Penelope?”
My grip tightens on Nellie, crushing her harder against me, all the while my gaze stays on Dolly, her face perfectly pleasant as she continues to stare at Nellie. And my girl, her eyes on Dolly, untrusting, because Nellie doesn’t trust anyone. She straightens, pulling her shoulders up, as though Dolly’s laying out a challenge that she just can’t say no to, as if she thinks, if it came down to it, between the two of them, she could hold her own.
Before I can even begin to object, already knowing what I want to do, how I want to deal with the situation, Penelope steps forward.
Forcing her way out from my grip, my teeth grinding with irritation, she moves in closer to the pool of blood, looking down at it, “Yes,” she replies to Dolly, slowly turning her head over her shoulder towards me, she smiles, something shy and sinister all rolled into one. “We can.”
Chapter 10
BILLY
From the enclosed balcony I stand on at the back of the house, a large windowless arch allowing me to see out, wind slapping my face, little droplets of rain collecting on my skin as I watch Dolly lead Nellie out through a thicket of trees. Presumably guiding her towards the crypts, a labyrinth of tunnels criss-crossing beneath them. But it’s not them I really see, even as my gaze follows them in the darkness until they disappear from sight.
It’sher.
Maya Avery.
Thomas Avery’s little sister.
She was the last one.
Mylast one.
Just one of the many that came before her, but she was the last one before Penelope.
All of them the same, petite, light skin, dark hair, brown eyes, quiet, shy, eager to please,innocent.That’s where the elders really fucked up. Trying to offer me a replacement Pair,someone more to their standard, their liking, a girl they chose and approved of, but with the features of Penelope. They just didn’t understand though, my Nellie is all of those things, except for the last one.
