Slowly, I twist my head towards the doorway.
“Silas.”
My voice is a whisper as his eyes sweep over me. As he sees the contents of my bag, scattered all over the floor.
“I was – I was coming to find you.” My voice falters as he steps inside, his movements slow as he walks up to where I’m kneeling. “My mother, Silas, she wants to leave. She wants me to go, and she’s threatening to say things – about your father, you, the twins. Please—,”
Silas turns, and I fall silent at the look on his face.
The dawning realization. The hurt. And then the fury.
“This is my mother’s jewelry.” His voice is low, pained, as he picks up an emerald bracelet, rubbing his fingers across the stones, and it stabs me all the harder. “What are you doing with it, Anastasia?”
My sob breaks free. “I wasn’t going to – I was putting it back, Silas. I swear to you –please. You have to speak to your father—,”
“Why?” His voice is a whip, rising in the small space. I shrink back as the anger pours from his mouth in savage words. “Because you’re a thieving little whore?”
“What?No.” I shake my head, frantic. “No, I swear. Silas, pleaselistento me—,”
But he’s not listening. I cry out as he grips my arm, hard, lifting me from the floor.
“Shut up,” he hisses. His face looks pale. “I don’t want Rafe and Kit to hear. You understand?”
Biting my tongue hard, I nod quickly. He pulls me from the room, and I crane my head to the things scattered across the floor. “My things—,”
“Leave them,” he mutters. “You won’t need them.”
My heart jumps as he almost pushes me down the stairs, still holding me tightly. “You’ll help me? I’m so sorry – she told me she was going to come after you—,”
But he cuts off my words as we reach the main doors. A hand slaps over my mouth, and I inhale sharply against his skin.
“I trusted you,” he says quietly. “I trusted you with myfamily. I told you not to hurt them, Anastasia. You promised me.”
His voice hardens, and I shake my head beneath his grip.
“You’re leaving now,” he whispers. “And I never want to see your lying, thieving face again. You are as ugly on the inside as you are on the out, and Idespiseyou. People like you deserve everything bad to happen to them.”
He rips his hand away, and points. I stare blindly, reeling from his words. “Go. Now. Before I call the police.”
“I don’t want to go.” My voice is a whimper as I reach for him, but he pushes me back. “Please, Silas. Please. Don’t make me go with her. I don’t want to leave you.”
“Liar!”
It’s a roar, and I flinch away from his anger. He follows me, grabbing my arm again and yanking me out of the doors, towards the cab where my mother waits with a bored expression.
“Take her,” he spits out, pushing me towards her. “Our lives will be far, far better without your poison in it.Bothof you.”
My mother yawns, before she opens the door and slides inside. “So dramatic.”
I stare at Silas. He doesn’t meet my eye, but he crosses his arms. He’s not going to let me back inside. “My things—,”
“You brought nothing with you,” he says coldly. “And you’ll leave with nothing.”
No. This is all wrong.
“Not those things,” I sob. “Silas—.”
“Get in the car,” he says quietly, “Or I will make you.”
