Her abdomen tensed.
She could feel the gun—not in her hand, but in her mind. Audrey pressed it right against his forehead. Her mind held it there, not her muscles.
The memory crashed into her. The knife from the scene of her family’s murders hung in the smoky air. A chill went through her body.
“Well,” Mihail murmured, ignoring the weapon as he came closer anyway, “you’re full of surprises. Definitely worth more attention.”
Mihail moved forward and was instantly in front of her. At this range, she saw the fine scars along his jaw, the light shadows under his eyes.
“For all her unforgivable mistakes,” he said, his voice falling, “I’ll give Sophia this—she did an excellent job hiding you fromus. A potentially glorious creature like you, buried in a human cage.”
Audrey’s hands trembled.
He leaned in. “Once you were free,” he said, “she had one option left: kill you before anyone else realized what you were becoming.”
The words hit harder than any bullet. Audrey’s muscles went slack. The gun dropped, clattering off the pavement.
Just like Emerson told her, Sophia wanted her dead. Not just in theory, but in practice. Hearing it confirmed didn’t shock her as it should have—it infuriated her.
Cary. Gone. Her father. Gone. And now she learned she’d just been next on the list.
Her eyes burned, but she forced the tears back down. She would not show any weakness or cry in front of him. Her teeth clenched until they hurt. She held his stare and refused to look away, even as her world reassembled itself into something uglier.
Mihail watched the storm cross her face. He didn’t say a word, but she could feel the way he wanted to crack her open. To show her teeth.
Recalibrating, she focused on the pressure inside her chest. It stirred under her skin, restless and hot.
The gun lay inches from her shoe now. Mihail didn’t touch it, but he lifted the weapon slowly from the pavement until it pointed directly between her eyes. While she’d done the same to him only moments before, she wasn’t sure she could do it again. She had no idea how to control this recent ability.
The entire alley appeared to tilt. And all she could see were flashes of red—her skull open on the concrete. Her empty eyes stared at the sky that didn’t care. She wished memories of love would surface, but every face she remembered came withduplicity.At least I’d see Cary, she thought, and hated herself for the relief in it.
Mihail pulled the trigger.
Twice.
Her body responded before her mind did. She didn’t catch the bullets like Mihail had earlier, all poise and assurance, but her hand snapped up, bare skin between steel and bone. Two bullets hit an invisible wall and fell to the ground like useless pellets. The sound resounded through the alley long after the bullets stopped moving.
Shock ripped through her. Every limb trembled while her lungs seized, dragging in ragged air. She doubled over, coughing, the world spinning around her.
She’d never been shot at before. The shock of it alone should have left her paralyzed, but what raked at her now was much deeper, much stranger. It terrified her how instinctive it had all felt when her body and mind had slipped into something instinctive and foreign. Deflecting the bullets had been as effortless as blinking. That ease sank in, and her mind staggered with the consequences. Could she ever trust her own hands again?
Even with terror growing inside her, Audrey knew she had a choice. She could let this power control her, or she could try—even for a few moments—to control it. She was done running from what she was. If she survived tonight, she would master these gifts, not bury them. Whatever unfolded next—rescuing her mother, finding the truth, or facing Ryker—she would use every bit of her strength. Audrey set her jaw, steeling herself against the fear because she was done being told what to do and who she was.
Mihail’s smile faded. “Interesting,” he remarked, watching her like he was impressed.
“What do you really want with me?” she croaked.
He moved closer, a secretive look about him. “I suspect you have value, Audrey. It’s why your mother wants you. I don’t intend to destroy you. But I do want to see if you’re an asset I can use, rather than an opponent I have to eliminate.”
She examined her hands again. Audrey had felt these sensations before. Like a god had filled her body and demanded she fight back.
The memories were difficult to process. The knife had lifted into the air by itself the night her dad and Cary were killed. Of that she was certain, despite telling herself repeatedly she’d imagined it. Ever since it happened, she’d buried that night under excuses and denial, convincing herself her mind had invented it to survive. The burden of the memory took her breath away as the enormity of it hit her. Guilt and awe tangled inside her, twisting tighter than any fear Mihail could inspire.
For years, she was sure her mother, along with the man from the backyard—Ryker—had been responsible for slitting Cary and her dad’s throats.
But as she stood shaking in the alley, it struck her that she had no idea who had truly killed them.
15
