With wide eyes, I stared at the mirror in horror. The lights began to flicker and dim. A beautiful woman stood in the reflection, staring back at me. Her skin was smooth and brown, and her hair was a fiery red, with wild curls haloing her heart-shaped face.
Estelle. In the flesh. or in the glass.
I opened my mouth to scream, but she ticked a finger at me, clicking her tongue. “Not a good idea, Beatrix. I have eyes and ears everywhere. You wouldn’t want anything to happen to those strapping men waiting for you, would you?”
I glanced at the door, mentally willing War to tear it down. Surely he could hear her in here, right?
"They can’t hear a thing,” Estelle said, as if reading my mind. “It feels so good to have my magic back. It does have its uses.” She waved a hand with a flourish, and a wave of red magic rippled over the walls of the bathroom. Some kind of shield.
“You can’t hurt me,” I snapped at the witch. “Magic can’t touch me.” Thane’s shield was still in place. I could feel it buzzing along my skin.
She laughed, and the sound was soft and sultry. “I have no intentions of hurting you, little wolf,” she said. I gritted my teeth at the nickname. Only Thane got to call me little wolf and live.
She smiled brightly at me, her eyes shining with glowing red power. She really was breathtaking, evilness aside. It wasn’t hard to imagine why people might fall all over themselves to support her.
“What I want is for you and your little posse to join my cause,” she said with all the confidence in the world. “You think I’m the bad guy, but you have it all wrong.”
It was my turn to laugh. “You’re fucking delusional.”
”Am I?” she asked, feigning hurt. “Or am I simply doing the work necessary to free our kind from the shackles humanity has placed on us?”
”By kidnapping Darklings and experimenting on them against their will? Yeah, you’re such a savior.”
She shook her head. “You’re looking at it all wrong. That’s the problem with young ones like yourself. You think you know it all. You think you’ve got the moral high ground because you refuse to shed a bit of blood.” She stepped closer, as if looking in through the other side of a window. “But you will lose if you go against me, Beatrix. You and Serenity, and your harem of men that you managed to wrangle to your side, will lose.”
”I don’t think so,” I said, taking a step closer to her despite the fact that I wanted to pee my pants. “I think you’re a crazy, old witch who got bored. I think you’re power-hungry and ruthless. You use people, manipulate them, and torture your own kind. What kind of self-righteouspsychopath can do all of that and call themselves the good guy?”
“You’re thinking like a child. It’s a pity. You and Serenity could do great things if only you knew how to choose your friends a little wiser.”
I gritted my teeth, clenching my fists tightly. I could feel the anger boiling inside of me, like lava ready to erupt. But I needed to control it if I wanted to leave this bathroom alive.
"How do you justify it all?" I asked her calmly. “How can you look at yourself in the mirror knowing that you’ve tortured and killed your own kind? No matter what way you look at it, you’re fucking evil.”
She raised an eyebrow and tilted her head slightly, as if considering my question carefully. "Morality is subjective," she finally said with a shrug of her shoulders. "What's right or wrong depends on one's perspective."
"That doesn't make sense," I retorted incredulously.
"It does," she replied curtly. “When you’ve been alive as long as I have, the lines between what’s truly right and wrong start to blur. I’ve suffered unimaginable horrors at the hands of the humans you love so much. Most of us have. Your uncle was one of us, and even he treated Darklings as if we were abominations. It’s time you learned that justice won’t always come peacefully. Sometimes, you have to reach out and take it.”
“Are you going to kill me or just keep running your mouth?” I spat. “I’m done listening to you try to justify yourself.”
”You just don’t want to admit that there’s a small part of you that knows I’m right.”
”Fuck you, witch.”
She laughed. “Have fun at your little hearing, dear. I’m sure Sebastian will have no issues saving your neck.”
”So, itwasyou,” I said, stepping closer, curling my hands on the sink, and leaning toward the glass. “You glamored yourself and killed Savannah Blood Moon. You framed me.”
”It was the most fun I’ve had in decades, too. She put up a good fight.”
"You’re sick.”
”And you're young,” she snapped back. “I’ll see you again real soon, Beatrix. You can count on that. Sooner or later, you’ll realize that I’m not your enemy.”
”Doubt that,” I retorted.
She was gone with a wave of her fingers. The lights in the bathroom turned back on, and the red shield around the bathroom lifted.
