Joy laughed. “I’m sorry. My brothers are annoying.”
“You’re a tiny little thing,” Mom interrupted, walking toward us. I placed a protective hand on her shoulder, a gesture that told Mom not to go overboard. “No wonder Sebastian’s so adamant about protecting you.” She finally offered Isabella a smile. “And it’s a good thing because now we know who we’re really dealing with.”
“From what we heard from Payne and Barron last night, it’s safe to assume she’s a key element here to whatever games he’s playing and so are we.” Maureen strolled forward and planted herself next to Joy with her arms folded over her chest. “He’s the one that made Izzie’s touch deadly.”
“Maureen,” Mom’s voice had that warning tone to it I was accustomed to growing up.
“Well, his little girlfriend probably knows what’s cooking in the Underworld,” Maureen went on anyway.
“Maureen,” I hissed. “Izzie knows just as much as we do.”
“Maureen’s right.” Of course, Barron would agree with our sister. I scowled at him. “You don’t know Izzie, and it’s awfully convenient that you ran into her right when all of this started.”
“You’re wrong,” Izzie muttered. “In fact, Julius doesn’t want me around Sebastian at all. He settles the darkness inside me in a way that almost angers Julius… As for the rest of you, you’re right. We’re all a part of some scheme that I have no clue about.” She hardened her eyes on Maureen. “I wish I knew more, but that would require me to be close to Julius and that’s something I never want to happen. Tell me, have you been stripped of your own will and have all your thoughts removed forever? Have you ever not existed inside yourself? Have your hands been forced on a defenseless creature until there was no life left? Have you been stripped of who you were before you were old enough to be a person?”
I knew that last one struck a nerve for all of us, and Izzie had done it without even realizing. A storm brew in Maureen’s eyes before she twisted on her heels, shoving Joy out of the way. “Fuck this.”
“Maureen,” Mom called after her.
“I’ll go after her,” Barron followed her.
“I’m sorry,” Izzie started.
Mom cut her off. “It’s fine. They all have their own demons to face, including you.”
“Stay close to my brother,” Joy gave her a smile. “It sounds like having you two close together is safer for all of us.”
“I think so too,” Mom agreed with a smile.
“Now we have to find Harvest and put a stop to whatever the hell is going on,” Payne groaned, running his hand through his hair.
“Relax, Payne,” Dad finally made an appearance. The first place his gaze fell was on Mom and even after all these years, those two proved to me love was a very potent and real thing. “Everything always works out.” Only I was surprised to see Mom frowning when Dad said those words. He caught her expression, walked toward her, and pulled her into his arms. “We’ve been through worse.”
Mom smiled. “We have,” she agreed. “But you’re the one that’s been restless because of everything that’s happening. Don’t downplay this. Something’s changing. I can almost feel it against my skin..”
“It’s okay, love.” When Dad kissed Mom’s forehead, Joy looked around the room for Payne. He averted her gaze and strolled out of the castle without looking back.
“You can’t keep me out of the loop all the time,” I recognized Kitty’s voice as she stepped out of the double doors that led to the kitchen. She had a spoon in her mouth and a bowl of ice cream with her.
“We don’t mean to keep you out of it,” Dad told her.
“Yes, you do.” She huffed. “It’s fine though, you’re gonna need me if things are bad enough that everyone keeps meeting together like this.” Her eyes lifted over to Izzie as she placed a big scoop of ice cream in her mouth. In a muffled voice, she asked, “Who is this?”
“This is Isabella—” I stopped talking when I saw that Isabella couldn’t take her eyes off Kitty. Not in the way she looked at everyone when her darkness was taking over. No, this was something else entirely. She looked horrified.
“You—”
Isabella took three steps back before she bolted out of the castle.
Nineteen
Isabella
Ishouldn’t be surprised. I shouldn’t want to run.
But I was so afraid.
I recognized those golden strands, the curve of her body as it rested against the dirty floor of the building. Only now she was standing in front of me in the form of Sebastian’s sister. A ghost from my past came back to haunt me and one of them finally had a name. A name I had never wanted to know.
