I ignored her. Next to me, Vas was very still. “Tell me,” I snapped.
“Beatrice Phillips,” Gemma gasped out. Her face was turning gray.
“Please, Danica!” Evie let out a choked sob. Bile flooded my mouth and my power disappeared, buried deep beneath my shame.
Gemma stumbled and Evie caught her, turning and calling for Gail. The other witch appeared, glowered at me, and hauled Gemma to her feet, helping her stumble away from the door.
I’d done that. I basically beat up an old lady.
I turned back to my sister.
Evie’s eyes were so wide they seemed to take up half her face. Her lips were bloodless. She let out a shuddering breath and we stared at each other for an endless moment.
“Leave,” she said.
I left.
Vas followed me, a silent support next to me as we walked back to my car. I got in, turned the key, and stared blankly at the road in front of me.
“You didn’t truly harm her,” Vas said. He’d obviously decided against flying.
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
He shrugged. “It wasn’t the best move if you were hoping for future cooperation from that coven, but she wasn’t going to tell you anything. You did what you had to do.”
Demon logic. Might makes right.
I pulled away from the curb, leaving the house in my rearview mirror.
“Ask,” I ordered, and Vas sighed.
“How come you don’t see your sister?”
I took a deep breath. Even the question hurt. As a kid, I’d never once imagined that I wouldn’t have a relationship with Evie as an adult. But I may need to accept that the gulf between us is impossible to close.
Relationships are weird like that. We all have our own stories about the people we loved the most. In my sister’s eyes, she was abandoned— left behind with a coven of witches while our mother took me with her. In Evie’s mind, I was the important one. The daughter my mom loved enough to take with her.
And in my eyes, my sister received what I had always wanted— a stable childhood surrounded by people who cared about her. I had a childhood spent on the run, until, one day, my mother never came home.
I glanced at Vas. “I was seventeen when my mom died. Evie was fourteen.” The same age I’d been when mom took me on the run, leaving Evie behind with the witches. “We were living in Austin. I don’t know why mom came back to Durham— she’d become so paranoid that she never talked to me. I was a teenager and becoming an asshole. I missed my sister and I was tired of constantly moving. When mom left for this visit, I told her I might not be there when she came back. Instead, she was the one who never came back.”
Something in my chest wrenched and I forced my voice to be steady. “I was told it was an accident.”
Vas’ eyes met mine. “It wasn’t.”
“No. I came back to Durham and told Evie that mom had died, but she made it clear she wanted nothing to do with me.” Cold. Her face had been so cold when I’d told her. Her eyes had gone blank with what might’ve been shock, but she’d simply nodded, thanked me, and shut the door in my face.
“I should’ve stayed. Evie was just a kid. Just a sad, lonely kid who needed a sister. Instead, I did as she asked. I left Durham. There was nothing here for me except memories. So I went back to Austin, where I’d been training under Edward Sutton–”
Vas’ mouth dropped open. “Wait, wait, wait. You were training under Sutton?”
I smiled. “Yeah. My mom… she was normal growing up, you know? We moved around as kids, but she got transferred for work a lot. One day, when I was fourteen, she just snapped. She came home from work and… I’d never seen her so scared. That night, she left my sister with the coven and took me with her.”
Screams still rang out in my ears in my dreams. I’droaredfor my sister, and she’d screamed her rage.
I pushed the memories down where they belonged. “Anyway, Mom devolved into full-fledged paranoia. I don’t know where she found the money, but she somehow convinced Sutton to train me.”
Vas tilted his head. “Explains why you’re so fast for a human.”
