A streak of desperation spiked through Audrey’s aura like a sudden jolt.
“Your mother’s mind is fraying,” Mihail added. “She’s suppressed her power for too long. I see that now. She’s coming apart. Which means we’ll take you.” He let the words rest, almost savoring them. “Did she ever tell you about what she lost to the fire, or why she locked her mind away? Or did she pretend you might outrun your own blood?”
Audrey had found her mother, years ago, standing silent in front of the old fireplace. When she asked what Sophia was looking at, her mother had only shaken her head, eyes hardening once more into that familiar tough exterior, and said stiffly, “Not everything survives the flames.” The words had stuck with Audrey and almost comforted her in prison. With Mihail’s accusation ringing in the air, the fragmented memories suddenly meant something deeper: there was more to her mother’s silence than pain, and there always had been.
Mihail studied her a moment longer. “You have no idea what you could be.”
Sophia appeared at Audrey’s side, the speed nearly impossible.
“Mom,” Audrey breathed. Hope blazed stronger inside her.
A switchblade floated in front of Sophia’s face, twirling under her control. An unmistakable threat waiting to happen. The alley felt weighted with power neither woman could contain, and Audrey realized with a sick drop in her stomach that Mihail wasn’t afraid of it.
He looked at both of them—two fire-starters with telepathy and telekinesis—and smiled.
Sophia’s voice penetrated the silence.
“Audrey,” she said quietly. “Finally.”
16
The knife hovered in the air, the blade shining in the streetlight glow. There was nowhere to step back. Sophia’s black eyes focused on hers.
“You and Ryker are poison,” Sophia said to Mihail, sounding subdued.
Audrey’s aura touched her mother’s thoughts. Nothing came back except fire.
“Every word you say is a lie,” her mother said. “This ends today—with Audrey’s death.”
Air popped. Whatever history lived between Mihail and her mother was old and bloody. The more Sophia snarled at Mihail, the less afraid Audrey felt of him. That hatred from her couldn’t be faked. Her mother despised Mihail and Ryker down to the marrow. That had to mean something.
She loves me. She has to. She’ll get us out. She’ll?—
Audrey held on to those thoughts as a tether. If they weren’t true, there was no hope at all.
“It’s not insanity,” Mihail said. “If you’d stop long enough to listen, you’d see it could be different this time.”
“Any plan of his is a death sentence,” Sophia snapped. “All you’re doing is feeding the Aggregate bodies.”
Audrey thought of the file on Ryker. Death incarnate was less hyperbole than fact, written in bone.
Mihail only stared, almost placid, as if waiting for Sophia to damn herself with her own words. She didn’t. “Your daughter suffered when you locked her away,” Mihail said. “He would never do that to one of his own.”
“I gave up my family trying to stop yours.” Sophia’s lip curled. “And I will kill my own daughter before I let you take her. You’re not heroes, you delusional bastard. You’re the villains.” Her eyes flashed black, then cleared. She spat at his feet.
Mihail’s smile twisted. “Nice. You even got a choice. Most don’t.” He nodded to Audrey. “Tell her about Cary.”
“Cary is different,” Sophia snapped. “She isn’t a gold triad.”
The words detonated in Audrey's mind. She barely knew what they meant, but instinct yelled at her. Something rare, dangerous. Something hunted. She felt it in her blood. Whatever a gold triad was, it was no blessing—it was a target.
“Are you sure about that?” asked Mihail.
Cary’s laugh rang in her mind. She’d hidden that sound ten years ago, packed it away somewhere unreachable because the alternative had been unbearable.
Audrey tried to focus on breathing, but the questions came anyway. Was she one of these gold triads? Was Cary alive? It couldn’t be true. Audrey had watched her sister collapse into a puddle of blood. She’d constructed her entire grief around that image.
“Mom?” Audrey rasped. “Cary is...what? What the fuck is going on? Tell them you’re lying.”
