“Where?”
“I don’t know!” she shouted. “He cut me loose! That’s my punishment. I’m cut off completely. I don’t get to hear from Sloane or know what’s going on or if she’s all right. He told me I would never see her again. I don’t even know if she’s still alive.”
I watched her dissolve in front of me. Her hands flew to her face to cover hiccupping sobs and her thin shoulders shook from the force of her sorrow.
Empathy and my own concern rippled through me, but I couldn’t bring myself to comfort Thalia Clayton. She brought this on herself by letting her family get so wrapped up in Nix’s ugly world. Her children should never have been within that monster’s reach. It was her job as their mother to protect them, not throw them to the wolves.
“I know you blame me,” she sniffled. She was not wrong. “But not all of us can be as brave as you, Ivy. Not all of us know how to get out. I didn’t know what else to do! I didn’t know how else to protect them than to teach them to stay in line. That was the best I could do for them!” She wrapped her arms around her middle and let her tears stream freely. “If I had known… if I had…”
“Where’s Echo?” I asked in an effort to move on.
Thalia shrugged. “She probably killed herself.”
“What?”
She turned back to look at me. “I don’t know that for sure. I haven’t been able to reach her. Nobody has seen her. I wouldn’t blame her though.”
The conviction in her voice surprised me. I had so many questions and I was quickly realizing Hermes was right. I couldn’t avoid this any longer. Not if my friends were involved too.
And because of me.
“Have you heard from Nix? Do you know where he is?”
“Last I heard he went back to Greece. He has men looking for you, you know. He led the search himself for a while, but when he couldn’t find you he came back and got the girls. He thought that might be some incentive for you to reappear. But you never did.”
Frustration fissured through me, creating deep craters that would leave scars on my bones. “I didn’t hear,” I swore to her. “When I left, I never intended to come back. I… I didn’t check in because I didn’t want to get anyone in trouble.”
She made another derisive sound, “Thanks for that.”
I had officially lost my patience. “Thalia, I asked Sloane and Exie to come with me. I begged them to! We had planned for years to escape together. That wasalwaysthe plan. But in the end, they wouldn’t. They wouldn’t leave. They had been conditioned to believe we couldn’t make it and so they didn’t even try!”
“And why do you think they thought that? Could it have something to do with their sisters dying?”
“I know it was that! But that’s why it was so important that we tried. We would have made it.Imade it.”
I thought she would yell right back at me. I expected all of her fire and brimstone. I expected a display of power orsomething. Instead, she nodded sadly and said, “You know, when I was your age, I had the same thoughts. I knew I was smart. I knew I was motivated. I could get out, I thought. I could escape. I think all of us believe it. Before you experience the life, I meanreallyexperience it. Before it destroys every single ounce of hope and will power in you, before it rips out your insides and shreds what’s left of your dignity, I think it’s natural to believe that you can be the one that actually breaks free. I don’t blame you for wanting out, Ivy. I don’t blame any of you. But what you don’t understand about Nix is that he makes it impossible to leave. If he cannot find you, then he punishes you by taking those that you love and care about. It’s his way. You got out, Ivy. You got farther than anyone else, but here you are. He drew you back in because we can’t help it.”
I had been listening intently to each of her words and when she stopped, I felt like I was missing something. “We can’t help what?”
“As heartless as we try to be, we always end up caring for someone. He always hassomeonehe can use to bring us back to him. There is always someone left at risk.” She shook her head and looked down at her feet. “It’s nothing I don’t deserve though. My daughters were everything to me. We call them legacies and you know very well what that means, but I really thought of them that way. They were mine. They were the only good thing I had done with my entire life and I lost them both.”
I struggled to swallow against the swell of emotion that expanded suddenly inside of me. “I’m going to get them back,” I found myself saying. “I’m going to find Sloane and Exie.”
Her eyes snapped back to mine and held. “That’s what he wants.”
“What else does he want, Thalia? This goes beyond just losing one of his girls. Why am I so important?”
She tore her gaze from mine to look up and down the street. It was quiet, still. The sun was getting ready to set and the evening light had started to fade quickly.
“Let’s go inside,” she whispered.
Nerves fluttered inside of me and for some reason I knew that was a very bad idea. I didn’t want to believe that Thalia would hurt me after what felt like a bonding session between us, but I couldn’t trust anyone. That was something I had learned a long time ago.
“Tell me here. Stop stalling.”
She flinched as if I’d caught her. “You’re really going to find Sloane?”
“Or die trying,” I promised.
