She told herself she was not savoring his fear. That would violate Core Principle Number Six:Negative energy attracts negative energy.She wanted justice, not revenge. There was a difference.
Wasn’t there?
She decided she would worry about the nuances of the Core Principles some other time.
Kelbrook’s eyes widened in horror as he realized what was happening, but it was too late. She concentrated on the wellspring of his primal fears, dissolving the barriers between the dreamstate and the waking state. When she did this for therapeutic reasons, it was so that she could help someone rewrite the script. But therapy was not her goal now.
The dark forces of his nightmares stormed out of the pit. She couldnot see what he saw, for which she was truly grateful, but she was blazingly aware of the raw vibe of his personal horrors. And the razor-sharp edge of his terror.
She tightened her psychic hold on him.
“Tell me how you murdered my mother and I will close the door on your worst nightmares,” she promised.
“I told you, drugs,” Kelbrook panted. “It was painless, I swear. She never felt a thing. She went to sleep. I put her in the pool.”
“Monster.”
“I had no choice.”
She held on for a moment longer, waiting for the cold satisfaction of revenge or a rush of triumph or…something. Anything.
Nothing.
Shivering, she released both her psychic and physical grip on Kelbrook, scrambled to her feet, and picked up Sebastian. He huddled close, offering comfort. She took a deep breath and crossed the room to where Owen waited, mag-rez in hand.
“Are you okay?” he asked quietly.
“No, but I will be.”
Kelbrook pushed himself to his feet. He was no longer trapped in a waking nightmare, but she knew the storm of primal fears that she had summoned to the surface would not be forgotten. You never escaped the clutches of a truly bad dream.
He wasn’t the only one who would be unable to forget the encounter with his nightmare energy.So be it,she thought. It was the price she paid for learning the truth. She would deal with it.
Aware that Owen was keeping an eye on her as he held the pistol on a visibly unnerved Twitchell, she took a few beats to run through a couple of rebalancing mantras.
I seek harmony.
I am the calm eye of the storm.
I will grasp the anchor current and hold it fast.
“You’re sure you’re okay?” Owen asked.
“Yes, but I have more questions,” she said, relieved because the simple words sounded relatively normal. At least she thought they did. The mantras wouldn’t provide a permanent fix—that would take more focused work—but they enabled her to steady herself. She looked at Kelbrook. “Why did your brother leave those shares to me?”
“Because he hated me,” Kelbrook spat out, no longer trying to deploy his mirror talent. “He was furious because Dad put me in charge of the company. He had no choice. Hampton was a drunk and a loser. But he and Lillian latched onto each other from the start.”
“You used your talent to convince my mother to marry you, didn’t you?” Alice said.
“I didn’t have to,” Kelbrook said. “She was depressed. Didn’t care about anything, including her own future. Her grandmother pushed her into marriage. But she pulled out of the depression and confided the truth about you to Hampton. They kept the secret from me, but in his will, Hampton explained that Lillian had never believed you were dead. She was determined to divorce me and look for you. After she drowned—”
“After you murdered her,” Alice said.
“—he hired a private security firm to track you down and found out you’d been sent to an orphanage. I didn’t know any of this until Hampton died and his will was opened.”
“You murdered my mother and then you arranged to have your own son killed,” Alice said. “How can you live with yourself?”
“I did what was necessary to protect the family.”
