“Then he chose her.” Terra’s face twists with a decades-old pain. “Your mother,” she sneers at Clover. “She waltzed in with her perfect smile, and he just…chose her. Like I was nothing.”
Something cold slithers down my spine. A whisper of a memory I can’t quite grasp.
“Everyone steals from me. Everyone betrays me,” Terra’s voice is scratchy and cold. “Vivian and Miriam thought they could save those children from me. From me!” she screams. “Even my own sister chose that bitch Vivian over me. My own flesh and blood. My own DNA drugged me for years because she couldn’t function without me at her side. I’ve never had that problem.”
“The brake lines,” Clover says. “My parents were leaving ROS, leaving you. Again. Their brakes weren’t faulty, were they? You did it. You killed my parents because he didn’t love you the way you wanted him to.”
The cold sensation spreads through my chest, my fingers, burning as though I’m submerged in ice. There’s…something tugging at the edges of my consciousness.
“I gave him chances!” Terra screams, and I instinctively pull Clover and Chief back another few steps.
Sterling scanned the area with a drone for explosives, but that doesn’t mean Terra doesn’t have one on her person.
“Be patient,” Sterling says calmly in my earpiece. “We don’t see any explosives on her, and we’re recording all of this.”
“I waited,” Terra cries. “I built something powerful, well beyond anything my stepfather ever anticipated from me. People needed me. They wanted what I had, so I waited for Brooks to see what he’d missed, showed him, even. But he never came back to me. He had you.”
She points a bloody finger at Clover. “He had his perfect family, and I was still nothing to him. You were supposed to be mine. Mine and Brook’s child. My little girl. Little girls don’t leave their moms. Not like the spawn of devils.”
She’s crying now, years of mourning pouring out.
“So, you just took me?” Clover asks. “I was a replacement for the daughter you never had?”
“You were perfect. Brooks’s daughter. If I couldn’t have him, I could have you.” Terra’s voice takes on a dangerous edge. “But then she ruined that too. Vivian poisoned Valen against me. You ran from me after everything I gave you.”
“I was a child,” Clover says quietly. “We were both children, Terra. You manipulated and bullied us until you got your way. That’s not love, it’s not even kindness, it’s just plain selfish. You tried to destroy us because you couldn’t handle being unloved.”
Sadness drains from Terra’s eyes, replaced with something dark and cruel.
“You want to hate me, my bloom?” Her voice drops to a poisonous whisper. “You want to blame me for your parents’ death?”
“You killed them,” Clover says calmly, as though she’s stating a fact she’s always known.
Lights flash before my eyes. Half-second screengrabs that play out of order. They dance before my vision, and I sway on my feet.
Oh. God.
More memories come. Harder, faster, crueler than before.
“No.” Terra’s sneer cuts open the tether of my mind. “Ididn’t.”
Ice explodes across my body.
I know what she’s about to say. Somewhere deep inside, in a place I’ve kept locked away for twenty years now, I know.
“Your precious Valen did.”
The world stops.
Me at eight years old, wanting more than anything to make my mother proud.
Terra standing beside a car I don’t recognize.
Me sliding underneath it with her while she guides my hands this way and that.
“What?” Clover’s voice is barely more than a breath.
“He was such an eager little boy.” Terra’s mocking eyes lock onto mine. “So desperate to please his mother. I told him it was a game, that we were playing a trick on an old friend.” She cackles, and I flinch. “He didn’t even think twice when given the opportunity to gain my favor.” Her sick smile widens. “But it was his hands that cut that brake line, not mine.”
