“Well”—she clears her throat and tilts her chin up—“you were a very rambunctious child once your Chaos came out. Prior to that, you spent plenty of time here.”
“Then after the first few times he didn’t come, and I kept killing all your shit, I became too much,” Creed tacks on.
“There was no sense in you killing my creations. You did it just for attention.”
“Attention? I couldn’t control my power without Riven. If it weren’t for…”
Creed tilts his head, then turns to face me.
Uh-oh.
Looks like the ol’ God of Death just figured out my secret.
“And over the years, you gained control, and I allowed you to come more. It all worked out perfectly.”
“Perfectly?” Kyzen repeats.
“Oh, my sweet boy. You remember how amazing it was growing up here, yes?”
He shakes his head as he runs his hand down his face.
“We didn’t grow up here. Our time here went from every weekend, to every other, to once a month, to once a year, then never. You’d randomly show up in the Abandon, tell us to stop arguing with our father and make things worse, then you’d leave. What version of history do you actually remember?”
My chuckle slips through my lips as her eye twitches.
That shit looks crazy as shit.
Coming from someone who knows crazy pretty well, that’s saying something.
“Have you been spending time with the Slut of Seduction by chance?”
She lets out an outraged gasp and flings her arms up. The drink tray in the Attendant’s hand goes flying in the air, and the glass shatters on impact against the floor.
“You stupid, insolent creature,” Calista wails and raises her hand as the Attendant crumbles to her knees.
Before she can bring her open palm down, Kyzen’s fingers wrap around her wrist.
“Don’t you dare strike her.”
Her breath shudders. “You’d rather defend an Attendant over your own mother?”
“She did nothing wrong to deserve your anger.”
“She has one job. One role. And that is to hold the drink tray. She failed to do that.”
“No. You smacked it out of her hands. You failed to control your temper.”
She staggers away from him as though he just smacked her.
Her face falls into a deadly serious stare as her gaze roams across us.
“Stop looking at me like that. All of you. I am your mother. Not a monster.”
“No.”
The cold, one-word denial from Amick has the temperature in the room dropping below freezing.
“Just because you carried us in your womb, that does not make you a mother.”
