I turned my phone off and sat it on the counter.
“Are you going to go back?” my mom asked as she stirred a spoon in a glass the sound, making a tinkling noise in the empty kitchen. “I know I pushed you into it, but you don’t have to if you don’t want to.”
Twisting my hands on the counter, I shook my head. “I don’t know. If I go back—”
“You’re not going back.”
My head jerked to see Drake in the doorway of the kitchen. “I’m not?”
Drake walked in with his twin, Allister. “No, if we can’t kill him and we can’t kick him out, then you aren’t going back.”
“We’re so sorry, Jackie.” Allister reached for me, pulling me into a hug. “If we’d known, we’d never had sent you there.”
“It’s not your fault,” I said into his chest, sniffing back the tears that tried to come out. “You couldn’t have known.”
“Well,” Drake started, clamping a hand on my shoulder, “we know now, and the guild will just have to find someone else to flush out the rebels.”
“Wait, what?” I pulled away from them. “Find someone else?”
“Well, yeah. If you’re not going back, then someone else will have to finish the mission.” Drake moved around the counter to wrap his arms around my mom’s waist. “Tristen will let your partner — Julian, was it? — know and then you never have to think about that place ever again.”
My dad said it like it was all so easy. I just didn’t go back and someone else takes over my job.
Except it was anything but easy.
“No.” I stood from my seat.
“No?” Drake stared at me in confusion. “What do you mean no?”
Without answering him, I strode into the dining room where they were arguing my future actions.
“Yes, I do put some of the blame on your shoulders,” Antoine clipped, his usual cool exterior starting to fracture. “You took our daughter and turned her into this person who can only think of the next kill and not about her life, her future.”
Tristen scoffed, rolling his eyes. “I didn’t see you complaining when you wife joined our group. So it’s good enough for her but not for your daughter?”
“I do not think that’s what he means,” Mizuki tried to interject but the two of them ignored her.
Wynn and Marcus stood off to one side, watching them argue, while Rayne rubbed his temples in a chair, no doubt overwhelmed by all the loud thoughts hitting him at once.
“Hey!” I said, snapping my fingers to get their attention, which worked about as well as if I were whispering. Stalking forward,I unsheathed a dagger and threw it, slicing through the space between Antoine and Tristen.
“Woah.” Tristen grinned. “Nice shot, Jack.”
The silence from the rest of the room was deafening as all eyes turned to me.
“Yes, Jaquelynn, did you want to say something?” Antoine laced his hands in front of him, not at all disturbed by me throwing a knife near his head.
“No one else is doing my mission.”
Drake stepped in behind me. “Now, hold on a second—”
“You shouldn’t be worrying about that now, Jaquelynn,” Wynn tried to reassure me, brushing his hand down my arm. “Let the hunters deal with it.”
“I’m a hunter,” I snapped, letting my gaze settle over the people in the dining room, who all thought they had the right to decide my life for me. “No matter how much you hate it or wish I’d do something else.”
I shot a look at my mom. “I’m a hunter, and I’m not going to let someone else complete my mission because my complicated love life.”
Mizuki gave me a firm nod, and Tristen puffed up, pride pouring out of him.
