I had seen the bruises on Heather, our foster mother. I had gained a few bruises of my own, especially when I stepped in to protect Audrey from his wrath. I had always gone out of my way to never think of our foster father’s name, because his name didn’t deserve the respect of memory.
Unfortunately, when you take a life at such a young age, your brain seems to stitch every second of that moment in your cells forever. I could still smell the burnt zucchini casserole Heather had made that night, the last straw for her husband before he took the sizzling casserole dish and used it as a weapon against his wife. I could still remember the sound of Audrey and me running downstairs with heavy footfalls. Audrey with the landline to her ear as she called 911.
The operator who paused her instructions for Audrey when she heard Heather’s screams.
I still remember something cold and numb settling in my chest, watching him swing the casserole dish across Heather’s face and knocking her unconscious. How he didn’t want to stop. He marched toward her still body, his fists tight. How I jumped on his back, determined to stop him from hurting her more. I knew, deep in my gut, at the ripe age of fifteen years old, that he was going to kill her that night.
He threw me off, making me fall into the cabinets near the stove. He made sure to kick his unconscious wife in the ribs before he stalked toward me with a drunken, maniacal look in his eye. Then Audrey tried to stop him by throwing the landline at his head.
When he turned to advance toward her, wrapping both of his large hands around Audrey’s throat, something in me snapped. A darkness crawled over my skin, the adrenaline buzzing in my ears went silent except for a sharp ring resembling a high C, and I pulled open a kitchen drawer to grab Heather’s chef knife.
The soft sound the blade made as it pierced his skin and entered his throat.
I was worried for a moment that I had pushed the knife too far, that I might accidentally hit Audrey, but no. Her horrified hazel eyes were just staring at the tip of the blade as it exited the front of his jugular. The sounds of him gasping, struggling to comprehend what had happened to him as he dropped his hold on Audrey to grasp his throat, brought merelief.
The cries and screams he made when I kept stabbing him. Over and over and over again. Determined to get him tostopscreaming. To silence him once and for all.
Audrey and I dragged Heather out of the house, who was starting to stir but was still very disoriented.
“You killed him,” Audrey kept saying, going into shock as bruises formed around her neck. “You killed him, Van.” And I had no regrets. As Audrey attempted to soothe Heather, I went back into the house. I didn’t bother looking at the bloody, mangled body of my old foster father. Instead, I flipped on the gas on the stove and reached inside the kitchen drawer to find a box of matches.
The house was completely engulfed in flames by the time my foster father’s colleagues showed up in their police cars, and paramedics were treating Heather and Audrey.
I spent the next year homeschooled, on a special type of house arrest, complete with daily visitations from child mental health professionals. An alternative to juvenile detention that a talented lawyer fought for. Heather fought to keep us, and we begged the state to stay with Heather until we turned eighteen. She felt responsible for us, and the guilt of what her deceased spouse did to us ate at her day by day. When we graduated from high school, we told her she needed to leave. To start a new life. To go where the memories of that man wouldn’t be able to haunt her every day.
She only waited a week more before leaving the country. Then Audrey and I moved into our first dorm together at college. Thoroughly trauma bonded.
“Van.” Audrey’s voice snapped me back into the present. Inside the depths of the Fjellenheim Mountains. “What you did was forced upon you. You had no choice. He would have—he would have killed?—”
“So, you get it, then,” I interrupted her, gesturing toward the children on the other side of the door. “You get that, because weknowwhat Ilia is going to do, that we havenoother choice here.”
Audrey’s lip quivered. Silent tears started to pour from her eyes.
“…I hate this…” Audrey whimpered. “To take a life is so—so?—”
“Necessary,” Sergei said. “Ilia thinks that upholding the law and ridding Hyvenmere of any whismerric sirens is his duty as both the Chosen One and the Guardian of the Fjellenheim Mountains. He fears retribution from ancient gods and goddesses if he doesn’t maintain, what he believes, is necessary to uphold peace in the realm.”
I loved her. Audrey was my best friend. The closest thing to a sister I’d ever have. But I was grateful to Sergei for gently giving her a wake-up call. If what Sergei said was true, Ilia was no morethan a delusional religious extremist. Unable to be reasoned with, held back by his own pride.
“I hate this,” Audrey groaned, the weight of the issue settling on her shoulders.
“I promise you,” I told Audrey, “Those mothers out there, clutching their children, hate it more.” Hush nodded with agreement at my words, before sharing a look with Sergei that I couldn’t interpret. Audrey gnawed on her bottom lip; her eyes locked on my shoes as she wrapped her head around the severity of the situation.
All three of us stared at her, waiting impatiently, based on the way Hush’s fingertips drummed on her bicep.
“I don’t understand,” Audrey finally whispered through an exhale. “Why can’t we take what we know to the fae? The nereids? Why can’t we unite the realm by working together to arrest Ilia, and send him to the Gravhune properly, instead of just killing him?”
“Because Ilia has blackmail on them, now,” Hush explained. “It’s why we stole the journals. Ada doesn’t want her people to know that her parents killed Queen Astrid. It would ruin the relationship she has with them, make people question her rule, and consider challenging her. Additionally, during the night of Fergus’s party, Drustan and Caelena were able to grab ancient, illegal recipes for dark magic that would put the same distrust in the nereid kings and queens.”
Audrey paled, her hazel eyes widening with each word Hush spoke.
“…That was how Ilia was going to get them to vote to close the Mellhawn Gates,” Audrey realized. “Just…blackmail. It’s so simple. So stupid.”
Hush hummed in agreement, “However, if we can convince the fae and nereids that Ilia needs to die, by helping them see the benefit of swiftly executing him, everyone would win. Becausewe need the fae and nereids to be in support of us when we do this.”
“How are you going to do it?” I asked her.
Hush sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose with her finger and thumb. “I’m not quite sure.”
