Alarms start ringing out across the black market, cutting into the moment. I’m almost happy to hear it until I see fires and people rushing into the market. “Vian?”
I frown, turning across to see the area being flooded with Nexus. I think. I barely recognise them. They wear deep blue uniforms, like academy uniforms, and they are definitely rangers. Rhodes answers after a quick look at Hollis. “No, these are Nexus from Morriganis City. I heard they’re hunting for you, Gwenieve. Someone must have told them you were here. They’re using their army to look for you before the Vian king finds you. I doubt they want you alive. You’re now a weapon to be gotten rid of to them.”
“I’m not going with you, because I’ll never trust you again. I’m going for Severi.” I made up my mind.
“I’m well aware.” Rhodes sounds sad, but I ignore his tone. More shouts echo through the air. “We need to leave before they set up a ward to sense us.”
Finn growls low at them both as we begin to walk away to the back of the market, for an exit that Rhodes and Hollis claim to know. Once I’ve gotten Severi, I never want to see the twins again. My Nexus whispers into my mind, “They will bow as the world falls at our feet and they all bleed. Our time is coming.”
Chapter
Four
The drive with Rhodes, Hollis and Finnegan is tense. No one speaks, and I’m not sure if I should be glad of it or want someone to say something. I watch the countryside as we zoom past it, never pausing to see the villages and towns we pass. Most of the time we spend on the motorway, only stopping once for some food at a garage. Finn hasn’t said a word since he’s shifted back. In fact, it’s been silent in this posh Mercedes, except for the hour when Finnegan began to sharpen his new daggers and already sharp sword as we left Wales, while glaring at Rhodes’s and Hollis’s backs. We sit in the back seats together, his hand linked with mine.
It’s awkward. Rhodes looks back occasionally as Hollis drives, but I don’t meet his eyes. I don’t look at him because it hurts, and I’m a little worried that my Nexus will slip out and ring his neck before slitting his throat. I know that is exactly what she’s thinking, even if I don’t dare slip into her mind right now. And honestly, he would deserve it. I want them both dead almost as much as the thought of them dead cuts me to pieces. For fuck’s sake, I hate these feelings. I hate myself for not being able to just feel nothing for either of them.
They deserve nothing. Nothing.
It doesn’t matter if Rhodes was telling the truth, that Howard is alive. That he helped Severi save me from Georgina and the Vian king. All that matters to me is the fact that he lied, that he’s half Vian and our enemy. He knew what I was. He knew Georgina was my sister and he said nothing. Hollis at least didn’t trick me; he always hated me from the beginning and didn’t bother hiding it. Still…I thought for a moment we had something messy and weird, but something. I thought I could at least trust him to have my back, but I was wrong.
I shouldn’t speak first, but I’m curious. “Where’s darling Georgina? I’d like a word.” Rhodes and Hollis glance at each other, enough to tell me that they don’t want to answer me. I see red. “Are you protecting her? Are you in love with her too?” I can’t help the jealousy that leaks out of my voice. The tone I can’t quite hold in.
Rhodes answers me. “No, it’s not that, but we know you, Gwen, and you can be reckless without thinking of the consequences.”
“Protect her if you want. I’ll find her anyway, and she is dead,” I cooly answer, hating the judgment. How fucking dare Rhodes judge me?
Hollis sighs in annoyance. “Georgina is almost like a ward to the Vian king but a ward he cares little for and happily punishes for every wrong step. He keeps her close always, and he sees her as a defence against you. You wouldn’t kill her, mate, even if you claim to want to in this moment.”
“Don’t you dare call her your mate, you little shit.” Finnegan speaks for the first time, and he might as well have punched them both. “She is mine.”
I touch Finnegan’s arm as Rhodes continues Hollis’s explanation like Finnegan didn’t just threaten his twin. “Since she was a young child, she has been trained to be the one that kills you, Gwen. She was taught only to amplify and cheat andbe cruel. She was tortured over and over again when she did anything that wasn’t right. Can you imagine being manipulated every single day of your life? Well, that is how your sister grew up. She didn’t learn love or kindness, or what family is. She was only told that her parents left her, and they had picked her twin sister to raise. They didn’t choose her. The king—Stockholm Syndrome is an extreme version of what happened to your twin sister, and that’s who she is now. I don’t think there’s been a single day in her life she’s done something for herself. It’s hard to understand unless you know the Vian king, but he is manipulative, cold. He takes everything he wants, and he has turned her into someone that probably doesn’t even know who she is.” Rhodes pauses. “I know this because I was raised exactly the same as Georgina, and it took you to snap me out of where Georgina is right now. You don’t have to forgive her, or even want her around you, but the truth is she is a victim and your twin sister. I believe you’d regret killing her.”
“I don’t want your explanation about Georgina or lessons on what I’d regret. I regret trusting you.” I look away.
“I want you to know before you kill her without even giving her a chance to actually be your sister. Your parents made a lot of mistakes. Don’t you want to know the reason why they gave her to the Vian?” Rhodes somehow makes me look back at him, feeding me information he knows I’m desperate for.
I grit my teeth. “Why?”
“Because it was foreseen: if you two were to grow up together, then anyone would be able to find you, including the Vian king. Your power was too great. The pair of you are like a glowing, bright star in an empty sky when you are together, drawing everybody and anybody in. Screaming for the world to watch. They never would have been able to hide you and give you a normal life. They knew that the only way was for you two to be separated,” Rhodes explains.
Finnegan is frowning. “Then why didn’t they just foster her to some random family? Why not do anything other than give her to our enemies?”
Hollis answers, looking directly at me from the mirror. “From what your father said, the prophecy said that Georgina had to be given to the Vian king to save the world. They didn’t have a choice, and I watched them cry as they gave her up. She was nice before…and that hardened her. I thought she loved you enough that she would be a good mother and care for the baby she had left, but I was wrong, from what you have told me.” The water. “And I will forever hate myself for that mistake. I didn’t see how giving up her baby blackened her heart, Gwen.”
“Stop saying my name and apologising for shit,” I snap. “I don’t want to hear it from either of you. We get Severi and then we are done. I don’t want to see either of you ever again.”
Hurt flashes across Rhodes’s face, and Hollis looks away before I can see his reaction. Rhodes’s voice is soft and gentle. “Do you have any other questions?”
Questions about him, he means. Questions that might help him explain the fuck-up he is. “No.”
“Can I?—”
“She said no. If you say another word to my mate, I’m going to slam your head through that glass screen and smile as the car runs you over,” Finnegan growls.
Rhodes wisely goes silent. I look up at the stars, shining for now. They will soon fade because daylight’s coming and the sun is cresting in deep oranges and reds. I don’t agree with sneaking into the city in the day, but the twins were certain it is the only way.
“How do we plan on getting in without being seen,” Finn asks around an hour later, when we have left the M6 and are drifting into the countryside again.
