Addington turns on his heel and leaves. The second he’s gone, Shawnessy turns on Kodi. There’s a vague resemblance in the tint of their hair, and I wonder if they’re related. Is everyone I’ve come to trust a traitor of my past?
“Keep her human, son,” the scarred man snaps, all traces of kindness gone.
“Don’t call me son,” Kodi growls back, his sea-colored eyes flashing with anger. “And she won’t shift while she’s in here. She knows better.”
The older man advances on the skinny boy, but Kodi holds his ground and lifts his chin even though the older man is obviously stronger and larger. “Keep her from shifting permanently, son,” Shawnessy sneers, emphasizing the address.
Kodi doesn’t falter. “I can’t. Whatever protects her blocks my magic too. I can’t force a shift to human or beast. She isn’t like the others.” His hands twist behind his back, the only sign that he’s nervous. Unless he was bluffing when he called the girl out of her room, he’s lying.
Shawnessy turns away with a curse. “Useless boy,” he mutters before looking back at the girl. “We’ll have to get more creative then. Sit her up and leave her back bare.”
Kodi gapes at the old man. “What?”
“You heard what I said, boy!”
My old friend’s steps falter as he approaches the girl. Regret shines in his eyes, and he pauses just before his hands reach the table.
“Now, boy, or your precious sister won’t last the night.”
Resolve settles on Kodi’s face as he fiddles with the table controls, his expression indifferent to the girl’s pleas. My adult self weeps for him. He’s being controlled even if there isn’t a tether around his neck. His sister is someone he loves, someone he’s determined to protect.
The table moves in such a way that he doesn’t have to remove the cuffs from her wrists. He simply sits her up, folds the top half down, and uses a knife to slice the back of the robe. His hands shake, but his touch is gentle. The little girl glares mutinously at him the entire time.
I force myself to distance my emotions as I watch the psychopath carve into my back as if he’ll find my wings just under the skin. The girl screams with agony with every touch of the knife. Shawnessy gave her a drug first, but it appears to keep her still instead of deadening the pain. He doesn’t hesitate as he ruthlessly thrusts the wickedly sharp knife into the young shifter’s flesh.
Kodi stands to the side, his gaze directed into the corner of the room. His fingernails slice so sharply into his palms that he begins to bleed. The drops of his blood onto the stone floor echo the drip of the girl’s as hers falls into a bucket beneath her. Who will they sell the sphinx’s blood to? It’s more powerful than a human’s, and any vampire would pay handsomely for it. For a perverse moment, I wonder if it will go to Avery. Why not have all of my guardians involved in my past?
I don’t need to see this through. My spine tingles with phantom pain as I force myself to change the memories, flipping through them until I’m older. The scenes are more of the same: different experiments, strange tests, more cutting. The sphinx’s back healed quickly the first time, but as she gets weaker, the wounds take longer to close.
Thankfully, not every memory is horrifying. Snippets of good are interspersed with the bad. Kodi reads to the girl from outside the giant iron door, lying on the ground in the hallway so that his words are audible through the crack underneath. While he reads, she sits with her back against the door, and her face glazes over as the story takes her elsewhere. Even as a child, it was my escape.
Over time, the sphinx stops shifting and stays human. I’m uncertain whether it's intentional or not. Addington comes and goes, only revealing himself a few more times. Shawnessy grows more aggravated with each visit, becoming more brutal with his son and his prisoner. When the threats to his sister aren’t quite enough, the old man starts physically assaulting Kodi. My oldest friend suffers through every blow as he grows into a young man and the girl nears her teenage years.
My memories skid to a halt on one particular scene. The scrawny girl is lying on the floor of her cell, perfectly mirroring Kodi on the other side, though neither could have known it. He has a book resting on his stomach, but he’s not reading it. He’s older now and might be very close to the age he died. I shiver, wondering if the memories are coming to a climax. I was around twelve when I made it to the hospital if I remember correctly.
“Read, Kodi,” my younger self demands.
“Demanding little minx,” he replies, but his voice is far away.
“What’s wrong?”
“They’re planning something bad for you,” he whispers just loud enough for the girl to hear, the book rising to shield his mouth. I wonder if there are cameras positioned to watch or record him.
My younger self seems to accept this wordlessly, as if she’s known all along it would come to a horrid finale. “Then kill me, Kodi,” she whispers fiercely. Where did all that fire and strength go? Why aren’t I still that brave?
The teenager’s mouth hardens into a thin line. “I can’t,” he croaks.
“You have to,” she tells him. Kodi shakes his head and starts reading the book as if the conversation never happened.
The memories flash again until I’m back in the torture room. Shawnessy has aged dramatically; his back is bowed and his orange hair is nearly gone. Kodi is nowhere to be seen. When Addington enters, it’s like the years haven’t affected him. Silver now streaks his temples, but he looks the same.
“One more time, Shawnessy. I will allow you one more experiment to extract her magic before we move to the next step. My oldest son is of the age to impregnate her, and she’s just started bleeding. He’s powerful, and the fetus will be pure magic when we pull it from her.”
Potent disgust nearly chokes my nonexistent body, and I’m temporarily worried I’ll be kicked from the memories before I see the ending. They planned to breed me? Like a cow? I shouldn’t be surprised, but I thought they’d done their worst. Evidently, the worst was yet to come. My younger self is visibly shaken. She’s just a child, barely twelve if my estimates are correct.
Addington is talking about Garrett. He’s only four or five years older than me, a teenager in his prime. Did he know what his father had planned? I’d entered the dream state prepared to be shocked, but nothing could have readied me for this level of horror.
Addington looks around the room. “Where’s your boy?”
Shawnessy shrugs. “He was being uncooperative. All the extra time I’ve allowed him with the girl to soften her must have affected him, too. He’s contained at the moment. I can’t trust his weakened emotional state.”
Addington nods as if that’s a perfectly acceptable reason. “Well, my boy won’t have any such problems. He’s soft on his failure of a brother. He’ll do whatever I tell him to.” I’m torn between feeling relieved that Garrett probably didn’t know his father’s plans and appalled that he might have gone through with it to save his brother. Kodi was the same. In the end, I didn’t matter more than their siblings. I can’t blame them for that. All my family is gone. What might I have done if the men had my mother or a sibling to hold over me?
Addington waves his hand. “Carry on, and let me know the results.” The man never stays to watch what his orders reap.
I know what happens next, but I force myself to watch as the old man carves into the girl’s back again. The wounds are slow to heal, and I know this is when the worst of the scars will develop. Without Kodi in the room, the old man talks to the shifter while he works.
“If you’d just cooperate, this would be much easier. You don’t need magic to live, you know. I don’t have any, and I’m perfectly fine. I’ve done well for myself. If you give it to me, it will make everything easier. You’ll no longer be in pain, we’ll release you, and you can continue on with your life.”
I’m still confused about how he plans to take my magic and give it to someone else, but my younger self refuses to comply. Even when he’s smash
ing her legs with a heavy steel rod that I don’t know how he manages to swing, he’s still suggesting that she reconsider. The girl screams in pain, her body shaking with agony on the table. Blood splatters the room and the old man. Her legs are broken and bleeding, the bones sticking out at odd angles when he finally runs out of breath and lowers the rod to the floor.
When the shifter’s skinny form starts to shimmer, the old man’s eyes widen with excitement and glee. “Finally!” he crows, watching the golden collar as if waiting for a miracle. I shiver. Is that what the tethers are? Magic stolen from other supernaturals?
The cruel man’s impassioned happiness halts when the door bangs open. Kodi looks like an avenging angel. His broad muscles strain against his shirt and his face is dark with determination.
“Not today, old man,” he grunts as he picks up the steel rod and advances on the man who called him his son.
“You don’t want to do that, boy. You’ll never get out of here. Your sister…”
Kodi raises the rod like a baseball bat. “My sister has been dead for a long time, old man. You made sure of that. She might still have a physical form, but there’s nothing left but a shell. I won’t let you do it to Zo, too.” And he swings the rod. I want to look away as Shawnessy’s skull caves in, splattering blood and brain matter onto the walls, but I can’t. The old man crumples to the floor, dead, and Kodi turns his attention to the girl on the table. His face is streaked with tears as he takes in the damage.
“Sorry, little minx. I didn’t come fast enough.”
My younger self is incoherent as he releases the restraints and pulls her into his arms, her blood mingling with Shawnessy’s on his clothes. The maze that is the laboratory and prison passes by as Kodi runs down the corridors. Her legs hang uselessly and leave a trail of blood. The pain must have made her unconscious because she doesn’t react to the rough handling of her fragile body.
Now, as an observer, I hear the cries of other prisoners, and I catch a few glimpses of weak supernaturals, mostly shifters, who can barely lift their heads as my savior carries me past. If I’d given up my magic, would I look like them?
I don’t even know how I survive the run. The guards are paralyzed as they watch us, growling and spitting but unable to shift or move. I don’t think that’s Kodi’s magic because I can’t imagine anyone being that powerful. He could have stopped his father at any point if he could render anyone immobile.
Kodi stumbles to a stop that makes the girl whimper unconsciously in his arms as they reach the end of the stone labyrinth. He looks down at her face and then toward a flight of stairs. A howl rings through the stones, wrong and fear-inducing even though it’s my past and it can no longer hurt me.
Turning down a different hallway, my savior runs into a room that looks like a laundry room. Sheets are laid out on the floor. He lays the body gently on top of one, wrapping her body like a mummy after he straightens the bones in her legs so her magic can heal as much as possible. I’m not surprised that the girl remains unconscious the entire time. Then, he removes a key from his pocket and sticks it into a slot at the back of the gleaming golden collar. I’d thought it was like his tether, but it’s obviously man-made and maybe even electronic. The peculiar metal ring slips off her neck and he picks her up again.
“Sorry, little minx,” the old Kodi, still alive, whispers to my body. “That’s Addington, and I’m too weak to stop his shift. Someone will help you from here, but I have to go. I have to try and get my sister, even though there’s not much left of her.”
My unconscious self whimpers as if she can understand him, but her body doesn’t move as he settles it carefully into a wheeled cart of linens, piling more on top of her. I’ve read this book before, I think almost abstractedly, as he unlocks and props open a door that leads outside. He pushes the cart into the darkness beyond, and the door closes behind him. His scared face is the last thing I see before another hair-raising howl rises on the wind. I want to scream at him from where I’m observing my memories.
I know what happens next. I know who kills him even though I can’t see it. He saved me, and I can’t do the same for him. I want to follow him, but I’m stuck with my broken body. I pull my consciousness away with a soundless sob. After this point, the girl ends up in the human hospital. Someone else must have helped, but I don’t stick around to see who it is.
I can’t bear to watch Kodi’s death, the death I caused because he chose to save me.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Zosia
“I’ll go out there,” Kodi says, his voice breaking through my dream-like state. “Addington and Walthers won’t hurt me.”
“No!” I scream, bursting from my memories and sitting up on the couch. All my guardians - my savior, the sons of my enemy, and my sweet vampire - look at me in surprise. I shift my viewpoint without a thought, moving smoothly into a gargoyle’s eyes to see the two men staring down the building. Ansel is with them, but he doesn’t look well; he’s pale and sweaty. Walthers is just as much of a pompous ass as he was the day before. Addington? He still hasn’t changed, aside from more silver in his hair. He also has a scar on his cheek now, a thin, pale line that I hope Kodi gave him before he died.
“I’m sure that Addington killed you,” I gasp, sliding back into my body. “You can’t go out there. He’ll want revenge. You saved me from him.”
Kodi stares at me, his eyes wide, before his body floats slowly toward the ground. Garrett and Bren watch me, but I’m not ready to talk to them yet. Almost subconsciously, I reach out for Avery, his name escaping my lips. He’s the only one that didn’t play a part in my past. For some reason, that offers me comfort, even if it was only the brothers’ father and not themselves that were present. The vampire eagerly settles beside me, enfolding me in his arms. I rest my head against his lean chest, inhaling his flowery scent.
Garrett stares into the distance, his jaw hard. “We didn’t know,” Bren says, his hand on his brother’s back.
I take a deep breath. “I know. I just need a minute. No one is going out there.” I don’t even feel bad issuing the demand. My eyes are on Kodi. His head rests in his hands, and his body flickers in and out of visibility like he has difficulty processing.
Finally, he lifts his head. “I remember now. Everything. I didn’t even get to my sister before the wolf tore me apart.” He looks at Bren and Garrett, his eyes simmering with pain and anger. They stand stable in the face of his accusations before he switches his look to me. “I’ll be back, little minx. I need to be alone for a little while.”
I nod sadly. He can choose to never come back, I’m sure. I don’t know what the library will do to his eternal soul, but I want him to be free of his past if that’s what he desires. Every time he looks at me, he’ll think of his sister, of his fucked-up father, of the way he died simply because he chose to save me.
Duggar, who must have appeared when I was deep in my memories, gives me a meaningful look, and I know what he’s asking. I nod and slowly pull away from Avery, loathe to leave his heat and comfort. He hasn’t said a thing, although I’m sure he must be confused. I’ll explain everything, but there’s something I have to do first.
The minute I reach for my crutches, Bren and Garrett are both there, helping me with a hand under each arm. I don’t get irritated about it like I might have earlier. Their emotions are nearly palpable. They’re both horrified and ashamed of the things their father has done, even though they don’t know the half of it yet. Before I return to the middle of the library, I give them each a half-smile and gently squeeze their hands.
“I don’t blame you,” I murmur, making they know I’m speaking to both of them.
“He will pay,” Garrett growls, each word causing the hair to rise on my arms as it buzzes with conviction.
I turn my gaze to him. “He will, but in time. Don’t let vengeance rule your soul or you’ll become like him.”
“I’m nothing like him,” he grunts, but I can tell he’s taken my wor
ds to heart. I don’t blame him, but Garrett looks so much like his father. I don’t know how long it will be before the flashes of memory I get every time I look at his face stop. And Kodi might never forgive either of them. He’s been cursed by Addington to haunt me, and he didn’t even remember until now. He has a right to be angry with all three of us. It’s my fault that his sister probably died in that horrible place. I have no doubt that the operation continues until this day. A man like Addington wouldn’t stop because of one failed pet. I imagine it simply made him more determined. After chasing them off library property, the next step is figuring out what they’re doing with the magic they take from the supes.
I crutch toward the middle of the library. I’m no longer angry about my injuries. It could have been worse. A human probably would have lost both their legs. Loss of a limb I could have dealt with. Loss of my magic? That’s not something I would have been able to bear. All in all, I consider myself lucky now that I know the full story.
“Are you going out there?” Bren asks carefully, his pale eyes wary as the three remaining guardians join me in the open space before the circulation desk.
I nod, swallowing the fear that closes my throat. “I’ll stay on the steps. They can’t hurt me if I don’t go down.”
“What if they pull you off the steps?” Garrett asks, his gaze dark with worry. I don’t want him to love me just because he feels he has to atone for his father’s wrongs, and I could imagine an honorable man like him doing so. It’s only one of the many things we need to talk about after I manage the immediate threat.
“They won’t,” I say confidently and close my eyes.
She’s here; she always has been, because she is me. Unlike other shifters, my beast is not separate from me because I retain part of my human form after I shift. She’s just a piece of my soul that I’ve ignored for too long. I remember why I forced myself to forget. No one would consider me anything other than human if I didn't shift in years. And I wasn’t safe to change from one form to another until I got here - where I’m meant to be. I understand that now, and it’s remarkably easy to remember the process of becoming one with my sphinx.
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