I didn’t realize I’d dropped what was in my hands until I heard the glass containers shattering on the stone floors. “She was coming to say goodbye.” I felt like I couldn’t breathe. “That was the grief. We have to get to her now.” They all frowned. “Now!”
“You’re not making sense,” Ellie argued before looking at Alexis. “What was she keeping from us?”
I moved fast and reached for Alexis, but Theresa blocked me, thinking I was going to hurt her. I wasn’t, just needed her focused on me. “She said the only way she kept getting out of bed and living was because her daughters didn’t know her shame. Please, she was—I smelled the grief. She came to say goodbye.Please.”
“Gods above, Aurora’s going to kill herself,” she rasped and raced towards the front door and I was right there with her. “I didn’t under—she accepted it. She said she understood and would handle it. I thought maybe she already had thought of it because she seemed done with the topic.”
No, she’d been done with fighting and life.
“I can’t get Xavier on the line,” Ellie worried. “Here, we can take a security vehicle.” She called to whomever and they nodded as she got behind the driver’s seat.
“Don’t even think it,” I growled as I got in the passenger’s seat.
She tossed me her phone. “Keep trying Xavier at least then.”
Fine, I could do that.
I tried over and over again, sending a few texts saying to call right now and Aurora wasn’t in a stable place. Honestly, I couldn’t think of a single reason that he wasn’t answering.
Except apparently, he was handling Aurora mentally breaking.
We pulled up to the condo and somehow Ellie knew where she was, glancing up. “Fuck, she’s on the roof.”
“How do—” I started to ask, but she was already at the front door and all I cared about was Aurora.
Not how her stepdaughter knew where she was. It was just useful in that moment.
As much as I wanted to race up the stairs, it was a thirty-story building and realistically it was smarter to wait for the elevator when there were two of them. I wasn’t the only one who looked ready to tear out their hair which honestly shocked me about her daughter.
“Finally,” Theresa growled as the elevator dinged. We got on and she hit the button. “You have keys to the roof, right?”
“No, but there’s a garden,” Ellie answered, sighing when Theresa shot her a look. “I thought it waspeacefulfor her because she liked the coven fields. I didn’t think…”
“You couldn’t have known,” Alexis muttered. “We all had different pieces. Fix first, blame and drink our guilt away later.”
Good, at least they were going to feel guilty, not just me.
I was the first off the elevator and followed the extreme distress I felt knowing it was her.
“Please, Aurora, don’t leave me with the guilt of this,” Xavier was gently saying to her. Relief filled his eyes when he saw us.
“The one time I want to be selfish and…” She trailed off when she registered that he’d changed and slowly turned and looked at us. Fresh tears filled her eyes. “My life will never be my own, not even when I can stop suffering it. Now you will just lock me up again.”
I bellowed her name when she made a break for it and tried for the edge even with Xavier so close to her. The guy easily scooped her up and I sank to my knees in relief.
“I should have jumped from the carriage,” she repeated softly, crushing me.
“I don’t know what that means,” Ellie muttered.
“Do you know anything about her?” I choked out as I pushed to stand and spun on her. “She got scared after she was sold as achildand tried to jump out of the carriage on the journey.” I growled when they gave me blank looks. “While traveling along a cliff.”
I ignored them and went to Aurora when Xavier sat her on the bench, hating the detached way she sort of registered me.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “Don’t leave me.”
“I can’t live with them knowing my shame,” she mumbled, not focusing on me. “It was better they just hated me.”
“Aurora, please, it’s notyourshame,” I begged. I didn’t know what to do when she shook her head. “Okay, we’ll leave, beauty. Forget the court case and divorce. We’ll just go. We don’t have to stay in Atlanta or by ASH. I can get a job anywhere. We’ll just—”
