“Constance saved her…and killed the Malevolent.”
My breath released with relief.
“I couldn’t have done that.”
“How did she kill him?”
“She stole a knife from her demon.”
“What happened to her?”
“Nothing,” she whispered. “They just watched her do it. It’s a fucking freak show…”
My hands released, the tendons relaxing.
“Even if I had been there, I don’t know what I would have done. When they took me to carve my wings…they wanted to do the same to her. They took her from the cabin. Constance tried to stop them. Begged them to stop. Nothing worked. So, she put the dagger to her stomach because she knew her demon was too obsessed to risk losing her. That was how it stopped. Because of her. She said she would take her life if anyone looked at Claire again…and it worked.”
I stared at my hands, overwhelmed by the tale. My daughter almost… I couldn’t even finish the thought.
“I wanted to give up.” She suddenly got choked up, her voice breaking, the tears cascading down her cheeks.
My eyes remained on her hands.
“But she told me not to… I would have done it if it weren’t for her.”
My hand didn’t reach for hers. I didn’t provide comfort. Nothing.
She cried for a while, her loud tears filling the dark bedroom. “I can’t stay here, Benton.”
I didn’t ask her to stay. Not this time.
“I’m sorry…”
Her words fell on deaf ears.
Green eyes pleaded in silence. Desperation filled the air between us. A broken voice begged for my help. The voice of a woman who’d killed to keep my daughter safe.
And I’d shut the door in her face.
20
Constance
I called for a cab from inside the café, and when I got into the back, I told him to drive around.
Just aimlessly.
Through the slick streets, we drove, puddles splashing onto deserted sidewalks, raindrops on the windshield. The drops started to fall once again, the rain coming back for a second shower.
I couldn’t go back to the motel.
He knew I was there. Must have followed me. I wasn’t sure.
He could be following me now, so I told the driver to drive around Paris, the Eiffel Tower on our left and then sometimes on our right. The meter ran, piling up into a small fortune, but I had to make sure he had no idea where I was going.
Then I gave him the address.
I pulled up to Benton’s apartment, in front of the double black doors with the potted trees on either side of it. Rain pelted the sidewalk, and the cacophony grew louder when I opened the door.
“You want me to stay?” the driver asked.
“No.” I wanted the cab to keep driving, so Forneus would continue to follow him instead of searching for me on the sidewalks in the rain. I stepped into the deluge, my clothes immediately soaked, and I jogged up the steps to the front door.
It was the middle of the night. He’d already said he wouldn’t help me. There was no reason this would work.
But I was desperate.
I knocked loudly. My fist pounded hard three times in a row, making the wood shake. My eyes glanced over my shoulder, checking for the dark outline of his body and the sight of his stupid smile under the lamppost.
The door opened a moment later.
Benton stood there in nothing but his sweatpants.
He was a big guy. Really big. Veins. Muscles. And he had the rage thing going for him too. He didn’t carry a weapon, probably because a knife wouldn’t get any deeper than his bulging abs if he were stabbed. And a bullet…would probably bounce off. He was more intimidating than Forneus.
His bright-blue eyes stared at me, pierced me like bullets that left his eye sockets.
“Daddy, who is it?”
His hand instinctively went out, blocking her like he knew exactly where she was at all times. “Go back to bed—”
“Constance!” Claire tried to move past his arm.
My heart immediately tugged at the sight of that blond hair. “I’m sorry to show up like this—”
“Come inside.”
“What…?”
“You’re letting the rain in. Come in.” He grabbed my arm and tugged me inside before he shut the door. Several locks were turned and put back into place.
I was almost knocked over by Claire as she rammed into me. Her little arms circled my waist, and she held on to me. It was like we were back at the cult, her holding on to me so she wouldn’t have to look at the monsters.
I kneeled and embraced her—so I wouldn’t have to see the monsters either.
The anxiety and terror that gripped me by the heart suddenly left once that door was shut. Claire and I were reunited, and her father didn’t throw me back out onto the street like a rat.
Claire pulled away. “Why are you here so late? You want to see my room?”
Benton moved his hand to her shoulder. “Back to bed, Claire.”