For a quick second, I wonder if he already knows about his dad and what happened tonight. It’s been hours since everything went down, plenty of time for someone to fill him in, but looking at him now, I have a sinking feeling that I’m not that lucky. I just don’t see him handling theI killed your dad because he was a massive piece of shitnews this well.
Becket pulls the neck of his shirt to the side to reveal runes on the top of his shoulder. It looks like he now has some of my shields and my bow and arrows. “I have a rune that showed up on my toe too,” Becket announces, and I nod absently, as I try to figure out how to say what I need to say to him.
“Becket,” I pause. “Um…I had a run in with your dad tonight,” I clear my throat unnecessarily. “Has, um, anyone told you anything about that?” I blurt awkwardly and then hold my breath and wait for his response.
I send out a silent plea to the universe, hoping that somehow he already knows what happened and reallyisjust taking it all in stride. But that hope shrivels up into a nasty ass raisin as confusion stretches across Becket’s face. Yup, looks like I’m about to be the one to tell him that I killed his dad.
Fuck.
“Did you…know anything about what he was planning or what he’s been up to?” I ask vaguely, and Torrez steps into me, his body just barely skimming mine. I feel the rest of my Chosen step up behind me in support, and gratitude washes through me.
“What do you mean?” Becket asks, and he looks even more uncomfortable and confused by the wall of Chosen that just formed behind me.
“Did you know your dad was working with a lamia named Adriel?” I ask Becket, and I scour his reaction for any hint of deception or recognition.
Becket slowly starts to shake his head. “No, but what’s the issue with that?”
“Adriel was the lamia responsible for at least one group of paladin—that we know of, anyway—going missing. He was also the lamia responsible for our abduction,” I explain and gesture toward the rest of Becket’s coven.
Understanding dawns on Becket’s face, and then confusion takes over again.
“My dad wouldn’t have worked with him if he knew that’s what this Adriel guy was doing,” Becket states. His tone is filled with such certainty and conviction that it squeezes at my heart for what I’m about to tell him.
I don’t know what the runes on Becket or his coven mean, but I’m sure, in this moment, that however they connect Becket to me, he’s going to want to cut those runes from his skin when he hears the rest of what I have to tell him. There is no part ofI killed your dad tonightthat’s going to be okay for him, and I gear up for the shitstorm of a reaction I know is about to come my way. Sabin steps closer to my side and places a hand on the small of my back.
“Elder Albrecht and Elder Balfour hired a group of shifters to kidnap Vinna. They attacked us tonight,” Sabin tells Becket, who immediately bristles at the information.
“Why would my dad do that?” Becket challenges.
“They wanted Vinna to transfer her magic to them.”
I suppress a shudder at Sabin’s words and watch as Becket grows even more puzzled.
“I thought you had to fuck them in order to give them your magic?” Becket asks, tipping his chin toward my Chosen.
Sabin and I both stay quiet, and the bewilderment Becket’s wearing quickly snaps into outrage.
“My dad is an elder. He’s not a rapist, and he sure as hell isn’t helping some leech kidnap and kill his own people. My dad loves this community! He would never jeopardize it!”
“Elder Cleary heard him confess everything before…” Sabin trails off. Silence fills up the space of what he’s not saying, and it presses in on me and makes my heart start to race.
At hearing his dad was also somehow involved, Enoch’s head snaps to Sabin.
“Before what?” Becket demands, but I can hear the sliver of hesitancy in his voice. I know that sliver. It screamsdon’t tell me, don’t confirm my worst fear, let me stay ignorant just a little longer.
Sabin takes a fortifying breath, ready to deliver the news and become thebringer of pain. I appreciate him so much for wanting to take that off my shoulders, but no matter how much I want to pass the buck right now, the reality is what I did will shatter Becket’s world, and I have to own that. When I watched the life leak out of Elder Albrecht’s face, I knew the world would be better off without him. But as I sit here and stare at the fear and anger in Becket’s features, I see another side to this, one I hadn’t given much thought to. I don’t know if Becket will be better off without his dad. Elder Albrecht was a power-hungry monster, but maybe not to his son. To Becket, he could have just been a good dad who loved his kid.
“Before what?” he insists again.
“Before I killed him,” I say, meeting Becket’s eyes, and everything else in the room fades away.
Becket and I watch each other for a moment, and it’s as if I can see my words wrapping around him, sinking in, and changing who he is right in front of my eyes. Becket’s face scrunches up in agony, and the desolation that pulses out of him feels like a vicious punch to the gut. I deserve it, and I stand strong to take it.
He starts to shake his head as if somehow the movement alone can keep it all from being true. He looks so fucking lost, and I hate it. I’ve been where he is right now, on the receiving end of devastating news. News that’s impossible to recover from. I remember looking through a glass window at my little sister laid out on a stainless steel table. There was a stiff white sheet draped over her, black bruises marring her little neck, and an emptiness in her eyes, the room, and my soul. I’ll never forget the sound of the police officer’s voice as he recounted how she died. I know what it feels like when death robs you of something precious.
The officers showed me a picture of Laiken’s murderer. They asked me if I knew him, before they delivered the blow of what he did to her. I can never recall all the details of that man’s face. Maybe if they had shown me his pictureafterI had been clued in to what he took from me, it would be seared into my brain. Becket stares at me, and I know there won’t be a haze over the memory of his dad’s killer. Whenever this moment haunts him in the future, it will always be a clear picture ofmein his mind.
Tears pool in his brown eyes, and his pain practically reaches out to hold hands with my own. I take a step toward him.
