“It’s only fair, you know.” Skel was on the other side of Pandora, running his fingers through her hair. “Taking turns, I mean.”
“True,” Hunter mumbled, tapping away on his tablet from his spot on the other side of the bed beside me.
Reed was passed out between Dex and Skel.
Hunter stilled as he read something. “Shit, Bram.” I barely heard the words at first, my mind stuck on the sharp tension in his voice. “Your father wasn’t taken in. He was already gone by the time the agents reached his residence.”
My father was gone.
On the run?
Fuck. That meant Slater and Melinda were most likely in danger.
“Bram, I don’t exactly know how to say this, but when the agents arrived, it was a bloodbath,” he said carefully.
“Meaning?” I croaked, but the sinking feeling in my gut told me all I needed to know. “Be blunt.”
“He killed your mother,” Hunter stated matter-of-factly.
The words echoed through my skull.
I stared at Hunter, waiting for something, anything, to make it real. My brain refused to process the information he’d passed on to me. “I…what?”
My father murdered my mother—something he used to threaten on a daily basis. After twenty plus years, he’d finally done it.
Janet Hemlock was dead? The woman who had watched Harry Hemlock abuse me time and time again and turned her head away. The one whoencouragedmy abuse. The one who made me clean up my own blood after beatings. The woman I came from.
I didn’t feel relief at the news, like I used to think it would.
I didn’t think I felt anything.
My tablet buzzed on the table, and Hunter handed it to me.
Slater.
I answered in a croak, “Slater?”
“Bram.” His voice was tight, controlled in a way I hadn’t heard from him yet. “Harry called Mom. Ranting about how he killed your mom and how he’s going to kill you, too. I don’t know if he’s fucking delusional or what, but Bram, you need to fucking be aware of your surroundings at all times. You hear me?”
“He called your mother?” Hunter asked, taking over the call for me.
“He did. He ranted about how he killed Janet and is going to kill Bram so he could be a family with me and Mom again.” Slater scoffed. “Fucking psychopath.”
The words should have hit harder.
They should have scared me. But all I felt was a strange kind of emptiness.
“Psychopath indeed,” Hunter muttered. “Slater, you and your mother need to lay low. I just got word that he indeed did kill Bram’s mother. He’s on the run now, but supernatural agents are hunting him. One more thing, Harry Hemlock is the notorious serial killer that targets noble demons. Go on lockdown and call Bram if you find anything out. We will do the same for you.”
Slater exhaled sharply. “Fates, that’s…way fucking worse than I thought it was. We’ll do that. Take care of my brother, okay?”
“Of course.” Hunter took the tablet from my numb hands, his voice low and firm as he spoke to Slater about a safe house the Demon Council had.
I barely heard him.
It was like the world was slipping sideways. I thought I would fall into oblivion and never find my way out, but then, Pandora woke from her sleep. She wrapped herself around me tighter, moving across me and pressing her hands to my chest like she was physically holding me together.Fates, she was the only thing keeping me together.
She brought her forehead against mine. “You’re okay,” she whispered. “We won’t let Harry Hemlock touch you. Hunter will make sure Slater and Melinda are safe while he’s out there, okay?”
