What is so frightening is that he doesn’t let me turn around.Gripping my neck, he pulls me away from the drawer and then pushes me back into the living room.Throwing me down to the ground with an aggressive shove, Piers towers over me.
“Remember what I told you the first time around, Aila?”
He told me a million times that he loved me, but I don’t think Piers knows what loving someone entails.Certainly not this.
Moving to kneel, I let out a sigh.
“I’ll sign anything.And if it was you who did this to my mom, Piers, I understand how frustrated you must be after I disappeared, but?—”
Sweeping my feet out from underneath me, Piers punts me in the stomach with the toe of his boot.It feels like he’s drop-kicked my guts out.
I can’t breathe or speak.All my focus goes to catching my breath.My mind is blank.
I think I’m in trouble.
“Do you remember what I said?Not the second time we were together.You were all uppity then, thinking you could manipulate me into ceding all my power to you.I’m talking about the first time.”
Just keep him talking.Ben is on his way with the doctor.
My voice comes out as a desperate pant.
“You loved me-he-eee…”
“Sure.I was fool enough to love you, Aila.But you ruined us.You loved getting a reaction out of me, didn’t you?And I told you”—he prods me with the toe of his boot, making sure I am paying attention—“I told you that I would kill you if you left me.”
Another prod in my belly.“Now do you remember?”
If I say yes, he will react.If I say no, he will kick me again.I can feel something hot and liquid spreading inside my stomach.It hurts so bad.
“Mm-hm.”Squeezing my eyes shut, I try to block out the pain.
“Look at me, Aila.Look at me or else the next kick is going into your mom’s head.”
I open my eyes, reaching to protect my mom.
“You made me do this, Aila O’Hara.”
Pulling out a gun from his jacket, Piers shoots me.
Theron
I told Shadow I would search the backwoods behind Ben’s and Luna’s holdings.
The area is crisscrossed with tracks and scrub brush thin enough to allow an ATV through.It’s boring work to track something because I can’t use my vampire swiftness.There is something about our original human physiology that stops our eyes from seeing in detail when we run at great speed.
But let’s just say I am motivated to do a thorough job.
I’m going as fast as I can, moving my head from side to side as I look for the artificial green paint of Piers Jordan’s quadbike.
Nothing.There were tracks outside Ben’s house, so where the fuck is the ATV?
Think.
Jerry Steele always heads to the bar at the inn at this time of night.No use asking him if he saw anything.
That means his property is empty.
Racing towards the Steele residence, I no longer care that I am not scoping out the woods.
