My hand whips out in front of her, the back of my neck tightening when I hear the feminine voice travelling towards us. “I can’t help if you won’t let me leave.”
Louisa.
There’s thumping, like someone moving around.
“The Senate will get suspicious if I don’t turn up—”
“Shut the fuck up, Louisa.”
My lips twitch. It sounds like he didn’t have time to visit the dentist.
Conrad’s words are slurred, and I’m a little disappointed if I’m honest. I want this man at his full potential. Fucking someone up when they’re at a disadvantage bores me.
A loud bang shatters the silence, glass breaking and shit being thrown around through the other side of the door.
Louisa’s voice is steady compared to the tornado she’s dealing with. “Conrad, calm down.”
He clearly can’t hear her, because the commotion builds.
When a loud, thunderous crack booms down the hallway, I know he’s tipped one of the bookcases. It hits off the wall before us, fibres of dust dancing through the air and swirling around.
I tap Indie to motion her to the library entrance further up, and Conrad and Louisa’s argument carries through the halls.
“Conrad.”
“My father got you that fucking job, Louisa.” Another bang, and I can hear the clack of Louisa’s heel as she likely retreats. “You answer to me. You are who you are, because of my name. And what do I get as a thanks?”
Glass smashes.
“You couldn’t even do the one thing I fucking asked. You and Barry offered—”
“I offered you fucking nothing! She’s my fucking little sister!”
My shoulders tighten, and Indie stops dead in her tracks, turning rigid beside me, eyes burning through the wooden door ahead of us.
“I had nothing to do with what you and Barry wanted. I told him no. You’re fucked up, Conrad. You think I’d bring my family into the Omnia? You’re out of your God damn mind if you think I would have ever given her up, especially now. You sick fuck!” Louisa’s roar breaks on a sob, the high pitch of it sending my ears back.
I want to burst through that fucking door and ask them to spill every single thing their conversation isn’t tell us.
All their secrets, their lies, I want them laid bare like the blood of the Montgomerys.
They will, once we get them both and drag them to the Pit.
This entrance to the library is already slightly ajar, and I stare down to see the bookcase collapsed near the door we just left, glass lamps lying shattered across the dark wooden floor, windows showing signs of something being thrown through them.
The place is a fucking mess.
I catch a manic Conrad pacing back and forth, looking dishevelled and in the same suit I last saw him in, running his hands through his hair. “You don’t tell me fucking no, Louisa. You know that better than anyone.”
I can only see her elbow, angled as if her hand’s propped on her hip. She’s standing near the window. “Oh, fuck you. The Omnia is no more. Your entire family is dead. You don’t scare me anymore. You’ll be with them soon enough.”
His erratic laugh bounces off the walls, and I take Indie’s hand as we take the chance to slip inside. My gaze fixates on him as I tug her in, slowly closing the door until we duck behind a desk.
“You? You’re going to kill me?!” he blurts in humour. I can feel the crooked smile on his face.
Louisa mutters, but it travels, “I’ll leave that to my sister. She’s well equipped at dealing with your kind.”
I glance at Indie, and the earlier darkness in her seems to have subsided, replaced with something I can’t put my finger on, her eyes vacant as she listens to her sibling.
