“Not you,theyruined them.”
Staring at the porcelain, Elyse tried not to inhale the stench filling the room while she struggled to get her body under control. Without her, those lives wouldn’t have been ruined, but she hadn’t put herself in that cabin. She hadn’t been the one to cut off her father’s appendages, and she hadn’t tortured and mutilated people.
If it had only been her, she would have let Joseph kill her, and none of this would have happened, but she had to worry about her dad too. And then all those innocent people were brought to the cabin. If she’d refused to find Simone or any of the others, there would be hundreds more dead. She’d done what she had to do, but she’d never forgive herself for it.
Saxon kept his hands on his thighs as he sat on the tub and stared helplessly at her. He longed to comfort her, but she would only push him away again. He’d never felt so helpless before as he had no idea how to help her through this, no idea how to keep her from falling into a pit of self-hatred and despair.
“So many lives,” she murmured as she pushed herself away from the toilet. “And they’re going to pay for making me do it.”
When her eyes swung to him, there was a hardness in them he’d never seen before. Again, he resisted pulling her into his arms to somehow make her understand this wasn’t her doing. Yes, she’d been the one to find those vampires, but she hadn’t been the catalyst. She never would have considered doing what she did if they hadn’t forced her to do it. Somehow, he would make her and his friends understand that.
“Will you still help me find my dad?” she asked. “I can’t leave him there.”
“Yes.”
“You said you and your friends hunt these things.”
“We do.”
“I still have a thin connection to the last Savage who came to me. I can locate and lead you to her too.”
“You don’t have to do that, Elyse.”
“Yes, I do. They’re going to pay.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
An hour later,Declan brought them some clothes, sneakers, food, and maps. “What did the wall do to you?” he asked Saxon as he set the supplies on the table.
Saxon shot him a look, and Declan smiled in return.
“Everything okay?” Declan asked.
“Yes,” Saxon answered.
Elyse ignored the enticing scent wafting from the greasy fast food bags as she lifted the maps. Unsure of what state her father and the Savage were in, she’d asked for a map of every state in the Northeast. And if she couldn’t find them in the Northeast, she’d move on to the country and Canada.
“Can you find someone without a map?” Saxon asked her as Declan placed a pen on the table beside her.
“Yes,” she said. “If we started driving, I could tell you where to go and turn, but I couldn’t tell you the exact location until we were there.”
Declan remained silent while he studied Elyse. Rage emanated from her as she ran her fingers over a map of New York.
Declan’s gaze shifted back to Saxon. “I’m not going to like whatever’s going on, am I?”
Saxon had specifically asked Declan to come alone. He didn’t know how Lucien, Asher, and Logan would react to learning what Elyse could do and that she was their suspected mole.
“No, you’re not. Elyse has an extremely unusual ability,” Saxon said. “I think that’s what drew Kadence to her.”
She tossed aside the map of New York and unfolded Maine next. She barely touched the map before her fingers froze on it and she lifted the pen. With her teeth, she pulled the pen cap off and used the pen to make a red X over a section of land near the border of Canada.
“Here.” Elyse studied the mark on the map; it was so far from the closest town that she didn’t think it belonged to any town. “My dad is here. And so is that Savage.”
Declan stared at the mark before lifting his gaze to Elyse. “The mole.”
“Yes,” Saxon said. “But not by choice.”
Declan rubbed the bridge of his nose before digging into his pocket and removing a lollipop. He unwrapped it in such a calculated way that Saxon knew he was trying to calm himself before speaking again.
