Vane chuckles darkly. “Your tone implies punishment.”
“You are reprehensible.”
Lilith clears her throat as we reach the door to Mom’s floor. “Fair warning,” she says. “Your mom isn’t happy.”
Guilt claws down my throat. I pushed everyone away—Mom, Wilder, Jaxson, even Dad. I’ve been selfish, focusing on my desires without considering the consequences and how they affect the people I love most. Vane’s hand finds the small of my back. I lean into his touch, hesitating. Once I cross this threshold, there will be no turning back. Mom’s reaction will be a burden I must bear. But the country depends on it. My loved ones depend on it.
I step inside.
The room is an anarchic mess of shattered glass and debris. The empty cage door hangs open, and the window through which I freed the bats yawns wide. Mom stands amidst the wreckage, a broom in hand, her shoulders curled.
“Mom,” my voice is barely louder than the whir of the fluorescent lights still fueled by the backup generator.
Mom’s shoulders reach her ears. I inch closer.
“I am sorry,” I breathe.
Mom exhales, the tension draining from her posture.
I gesture to the broom in her hand. “Can I help you?”
Before she can respond, Vane takes the broom. We watch, transfixed, as Prince Vane, the leader of the vampires,sweeps.
“The cure was about more than you, Desiree,” Mom says, sounding exhausted. I wince, remembering Vane saying something almost identical last week. “You had no right to take away the choice of others.”
My gaze falls to my platform shoes. She’s right. The cure will give many vampires who regret their choices, like Zev, the chance to return to their former lives. I’ve been so scared about how Vyvyan would react if people found out what my blood could do that I never considered how many vampires might welcome the choice. “I was angry?—”
“You should have said something rather than thrown a tantrum.”
My fists curl. “To say something, you would have to listen.”
“What are you saying? That I am a bad mom?” she huffs, her eyes narrowing.
“You would have to be there to be a bad mom,” I snap. “You haven’t been there for me since I was fourteen, when your job became more important than your kids.”
Mom folds her arms. Her white coat hangs from a rack near the whiteboard. “I worked to provide foryou, Desiree. I’m sorry if?—”
“I didn’t want you to become the Altum Healer if it meant never seeing you! You and Dad worked hard to give us a life many Nebula dreamed of having, but at what cost? I am not saying your work isn’t important, but it made me feel likeIwasn’t. My opinion never mattered growing up. I was miserable as a healer, but you and Dad didn’t care so long as Wilder and I did what you wanted.”
“If you hated being a healer, you should have spoken up rather than stage your death to become a vampire,” Mom disputes.
The accusation stings. “I staged my death to help Dad hide the letters, to keep you and Wilder safe when you weretoo obsessed with your careers to notice what was happening around you. Why would I have gone to you for help when you never even noticed I was being tormented in high school? And by Juliette, no less?”
“What?” Mom asks. “ByJuliette?”
Tears well in my eyes, hot and stinging. I blink furiously, trying to hold them back. “I didn’t stop being Juliette’s friend. She stopped being mine. Yet you picked her over me the other night. Do you know how much that hurt?”
To my surprise, moisture glimmers in Mom’s eyes, a crack in her usually impenetrable armor. “I didn’t know.”
I inhale deeply. “Well, now you do, and I am not telling you this to punish you or Juliette, but because I am tired. I am so sick and tired of trying to keep things bottled up to protect everyone else’s feelings. I am tired of trying to make everyone else happy. I am tired of trying to hide my feelings to spare others.”
I exhale. My shoulders uncurl, and my body feels lighter than it did ten minutes ago. It feels good to get everything off my chest without fearing the repercussions.
I knew pain until I found solace in Jaxson, Vane, and my friends in the Nest. But then I lost them, too, and it has taken me this long to find my voice and come to terms with the fact that I don’t need others to define my place in the world. I am enough.
“I am sorry you felt that way, Desiree.” My mom’s voice breaks, and so does my heart. “It’s no wonder you destroyed the lab to get back at m-me.”
I reach for her hand. “Mom, I’m sorry for what I did, but not all is lost.” She tries to pull away, but I hold fast. “Iam the cure.”
