I miss them so much that it hurts.
When we walk inside, Father is waiting for us. I wonder how Otto will lie to him when he asks how the exam goes, butbefore he can say anything, Father says, “I have a friend who works at the examination site. He’s on the board and listened to the reason why you think you deserve to do the test at a different time.”
Otto looks down, but it’s not him that Father is looking at, it’s me.
“You weren’t happy fucking up your own life, you had to ruin your brother’s too?” he yells as he rushes for me.
“I didn’t mean to!” I say before Father grabs my shirt and screams in my face about how I’m not happy enough ruining their image, I wanted to take it out on Otto too.
“I didn’t! I didn’t want to! I just wanted to get away from you! I fucking hate you,” I shout. “I hate you so fucking much. You’ve destroyed my life.”
“Well, you’ve done a fantastic job trying to destroy mine,” he snaps. “You are a disgrace to this family. You no longer have a place in it.” He begins dragging me toward the door and because my feet don’t seem to work, I end up stumbling while he hauls me.
“That’s a bit much, don’t you think?” Mother asks.
“Stay out of it!” he barks as the grip on my shirt starts choking me. He’s screaming at Mother now and doesn’t seem to realize it while I claw at his hand, unable to take a breath. Is he going to kill me? I can’t breathe. I can’t… everything begins to grow dark.
Suddenly, Father slams back, and I’m finally free of his grip. I cough and gasp for breath, and Father looks up as El stands between us.
“You don’t fucking touch him,” El snarls.
Father charges past him. “You told me you got rid of them! Youliedto me? Of course you did.”
He reaches for me again and I don’t see it until it’s too late.
…El swinging a stone bird my mother had sitting on the mantel at my father’s head.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
ELLISON
“El… El killed Otto that day,” I say quietly. “He was aiming for my father, and to this day, I don’t know whether my brother was rushing to help me or to stop El from hurting our father… I don’t know… but I just know that somehow he ended up in front of my father so that when the hit came down, Otto took the blow.
“I felt like he was dead because of me. I’d begged for weeks for my illusions to return, and El came back just to take away the one person who loved me. It tore our family apart. My mother finally had enough and divorced my father, stopping the pressure my father had exerted over me. I begged her to help rid me of these powers, and she found a man whose superpower was to suppress others’ powers. It doesn’t get rid of them, as my father had wanted, but it lessens the effect of them. He mostly used it for people who couldn’t control their powers. So as I said earlier, that’s what the tattoos are for. Unlike the drug, it didn’t make me sick and simply made my power more controllable.
“My illusions were still allowed their personalities, though I had complete control over them and whether they’d come out ornot. It took me a very long time before I could face any of them again. But I kept El locked away, unable to look at him since that day. However, when my chest was cut and the tattoos were damaged when we were out in the woods… I must have lost a bit of control. Honestly, I didn’t know for sure until El appeared in my room a few days ago. It seems like he has autonomy to the point that I can’t tell where he is or what he’s doing. But he’s targeting the people I care about. He told me as much. I need to stop him… and I need to do it alone. I can’t have all of you here.”
Asmodeus shrugs. “Tough shit, I’m not going anywhere.”
I scowl at the obstinate man. “I’m not giving you a choice.”
“Neither am I,” he says. “I can out-stubborn anyone.”
“We’ll… talk about that later. For now… our main focus is on trying to get rid of El.”
“He doesn’t seem like that bad of a guy. I kind of like him,” Asmodeus comments.
“He tried tomurder you,” I say, in case he forgot in the span of like thirty minutes.
“Eh. I’m not too hung up on that.”
“You are banned from talking,” Valerie says, which means Asmodeus is going to want to talk more. “We’ve tried the medication that Nolan has taken with no success.”
I frown. “I honestly don’t know what else to do. If I lock myself away, it’s not like he can’t move freely. I believe my best course of action is removing myself from the area completely. I will go somewhere else where I don’t know anyone, which he seems happiest about. And then once I figure out how to control my power, I’ll return.”
“The guy who did the tattoos can’t repair them?” Landon asks.
“He passed away years ago.”
