Final Debt (Indebted #6)(123)

Bonnie ruled him like she’d ruled her grandchildren—with no reprieve, rest and a thousand repercussions.

“I’ll tell you where I’ll be.” Cut stormed forward. His feet didn’t enter the salt, but he grabbed my mother around the nape. The diamond collar—

My fingers flew to the matching diamonds around my throat.

The weight of the stones hummed, almost as if they remembered their previous wearer.

—the diamond collar sparkled in the sunlight, granting prisms of light to blind the camera lens, blurring both her and Cut.

In that moment, something happened. Did Cut soften? Did he profess his true feelings? Did my mother whisper something she shouldn’t? Either way, he let her go. His shoulders slouched as he looked at Bonnie.

Then the sudden weakness faded and he stiffened with menace. “Accept the debt, Emma. And then we can begin.”

My hand fumbled for the remote control, my cast clunking on the table-top.

I can’t do this.

Once Jethro had delivered me into the room, I hadn’t been able to move. My feet stuck to the floor, my legs encased in emotional quicksand. I couldn’t go forward, and I couldn’t go back.

I was locked in a room full of scrolls and videos.

For a second, I’d hated Jethro for showing me this place. I knew a room such as this must exist. After all, Cut told me he kept countless records and their family lawyers had copies of every Debt Inheritance amendment.

But I hadn’t expected such meticulous documents.

Stupidly, I thought I would be strong enough to watch. To hold my mother’s hand all these years later and exist beside her while she went through something so terrible.

In reality, I wasn’t.

These atrocities didn’t happen to strangers. These debts happened to flesh and blood. A never-ending link to women I was born to, shared their hopes and fears, ancestors who donated slivers of their souls to create mine.

But I had to stay because I couldn’t keep them shut in the dark anymore. If I didn’t release their recorded forms, they’d be forever locked in filing cabinets.

Pointing the controller at the TV, I stopped the tape as Cut ducked Emma for the second time. I’d been with her while Cut delivered the history lesson. I’d hugged her phantom body as she awaited her punishment. But I couldn’t watch any more of her agony. I couldn’t sit there and pretend it didn’t shatter me. That while my mother was almost drowned, I’d been alive hating her for leaving my father.

Forgive me.

Forgive me for ever cursing you. I didn’t know.

Leaning over the table, I ejected the cassette and inserted the tape back into its sleeve.

I’d gone through her file. I’d watched the beginning of the First Debt and fast-forwarded over the whipping. I’d spied on security footage of Emma strolling through the Hall like any welcome guest. I held my breath as she sewed and sketched in the same quarters where Jethro had broken, made love to me, and told me what he was.

I couldn’t watch anymore.

Whatever went on in her time at Hawksridge was hers to keep. It wasn’t right to voyeur on her triumphs over Cut or despair over her moments of weakness. It wasn’t for me to console or judge.

My mother’s presence filled my heart, and in a way, I felt her with me. My shoulder warmed where I imagined she touched me. My back shivered where her ethereal form brushed past.

I’d summoned her from the grave and held her spirit, ready to release her from the shackles of the catalogue room.

I have to free them all.

Shooting out of my chair, I rubbed my sticky cheeks from unnoticed tears and rushed to the other filing cabinets. Each one was dedicated to an ancestor.

I couldn’t catch a proper breath as I yanked open metal drawers and grabbed armfuls of folders. Working one-handed slowed me down. I dropped some; I threw some, scattering them on the table.

Cursing my cast, I lovingly touched every page, skimmed every word, and whispered every sadness.

Time flowed onward, somehow threading history with present.

Jethro was right to leave.

As a Hawk, he wouldn’t be welcome.

The longer I stood in that cell, the more I battled with hate.

Folder after folder.

Document after document.

I made a nest, surrounded by boxes, papers, photographs, and memorabilia from women I’d never met but knew so well.

Kneeling, I sighed heavily as their presence and phantom touches grew stronger the more I read. Their blood flowed in my veins. Their mannerisms shaped mine, their hopes and dreams echoed everything I wanted.

No matter that decades and centuries separated us, we were all Weavers taken and exploited.

My jeans turned grey with dust, my nose itchy from time-dirtied belongings.

Lifting images from the closest file, I stared into the eyes of an ancestor I didn’t recognise. She was the least like me from all the relatives I had. She had large breasts, curvy hips, and round face. Her hair was the signature black all Weaver women had and looked the most Spanish out of all of us.

So much pain existed in her eyes. Trials upon trials where the very air solidified with injustice and the common hatred for the Hawks.

I didn’t want to sit there anymore. I didn’t want to coat myself in feelings from the past and slowly bury my limbs in an avalanche of memories, but I owed it to them. I’d told my ancestors I would set them free, and I would.