This Wicked Fate (This Poison Heart #2)(38)

“I’ll never let it go,” Lou said matter-of-factly. “Ever.”

Marie rolled her eyes. “Oh come on. Your granddaddy’s been dead for—”

“You don’t speak about him!” Lou screamed, his voice cracking under the strain.

“Gods, Lou,” Circe said. “Take a breath before you give yourself a heart attack.”

He did as she said. But just barely.

“I’m back and I was hoping we could catch up,” Circe said. Something lingered in her tone—a faint edge of anger but she was keeping it under control. “I’m very interested in what you’ve been up to lately. You remember the covenant between our families?”

“Of course,” he snapped. He collected himself and turned to her. “Is that why you came back? To remind me of my oath?”

“Partly,” Circe said.

Lou’s eyebrow arched up. “Are you questioning my loyalty?”

Circe narrowed her eyes at him. “Yes.”

Lou had been rude to Karter. He’d been short with me. And he clearly hated Marie, but it occurred to me that he was this way with Circe, too. There was an undercurrent of anger that ran through all his interactions with us that I hadn’t really noticed before. He was weird and most of it had to be because he spent way too much time with a bunch of corpses, but there was something else there, too.

“I’m not surprised that your first order of business is to show up here to try and intimidate me,” he said. “Your family has always resorted to such tactics.”

I tried to gauge Circe’s expression but her face remained unchanged.

“Not true,” she said calmly. “It wasn’t until your grandfather died and your father took over that things changed between us.”

I glanced at Marie. Her right eyebrow was arched halfway up her forehead in confusion.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, you ridiculous woman.”

Marie shifted her weight from one foot to the other and let her hands fall to her sides. Something stirred in the pit of my stomach—a warning. The ancient willow trees outside groaned loudly as they leaned in and dragged their long branches across the windowpanes.

“Did you pass information to the Redmond woman directly?” Circe asked. “Or did it go through someone else?”

Something shattered in the front room, and my heart leaped into my throat. The tendrils of a heart leaf philodendron crept through the doorway and sprouted hundreds of new offshoots, the shards of its broken planter still stuck between its roots. The arms of the plant branched out so fast Lou had only been able to take a single step before they caught him around his wrists and ankles.

“Oh, Briseis, that’s very impressive,” Circe said, beaming.

I hadn’t even realized I was doing it. I hadn’t just watched it happen—I’d willed it to, much the same way I had with Mrs. Redmond. I leaned into it. Lou struggled against the vines. He tore pieces of them away, but they grew back tenfold. I imagined them gripping him tighter and they responded by doing exactly that.

Circe approached Lou cautiously, then stole a glance at me.

“Can you keep hold of him?” she asked. “No matter what?” Something flashed in her eyes, like rage and fear all mixed together.

I took stock of myself. The plants obeyed me, but Circe’s warnings echoed in my head. The problem used to be—could I control it? Would it slip away from me and mess something up? Now, it was the same question but with a different sort of answer. I could control it, clearly, but what would I do with it? What was I capable of?

“Briseis?” Circe repeated.

I nodded. “Yes. I can hold him.”

“Stupid girl,” Lou seethed.

An offshoot no bigger around than a pencil wriggled around his neck. I pictured it slithering up his left nostril, and as it started to do just that he thrashed wildly, twisting his neck around to avoid the tendrils.

Lou let out a strangled, angry roar. “Get away from me! Let me go!”

Circe lifted her chin. “No. We’re going to have a little chat, and you’re going to be honest with me or I am going to have Marie tear your arms out of their sockets. We clear?”

My heart galloped into a furious rhythm. Her tone was dark, serious. Circe was threatening Lou’s life, and everything in me felt like she meant every word.

Marie moved to the front door, turned the dead bolt, and pulled the shade. Fear dialed my senses all the way up. Lou’s breaths came in quick, frantic gasps. The branches and vines that held him creaked and popped as they gripped him tighter. Marie’s wrist-full of bracelets made a soft tinkling sound as she reached up to push her braid behind her shoulder. She brushed past me and stole a glance with eyes like blackened voids.

“When did you tell this Redmond woman about Briseis?” Circe asked.

My heart thudded in my chest as Lou’s gaze darted from Circe to Marie and then to me. He was terrified. “I don’t know what you’re—”

Before he could finish the sentence, Marie lunged forward. She grabbed him by the neck and lifted him straight up into the air. She swung him into the wall and held him there, his feet dangling off the ground.

He coughed and sputtered as the pale skin around his lips turned bluish-gray. Circe gently put her hand on Marie’s shoulder. Marie loosened her grip and allowed Lou’s feet to meet the ground again, but just barely, and she didn’t move her hand away from his neck.