Beautiful Chaos(108)

She had to stop the voices.


When Sarafine got home, John was in the living room.

“Shh. The baby’s asleep.” He kissed her on the cheek as she sat down next to him on the couch. “Where have you been?”

For a second she considered lying, telling him she was at the library or walking in the park. But Hunting’s words mocked her. “I wonder how long it would take him to turn on you.” He was wrong about John.

“I was in the Tunnels.”

“What?” John sounded as if he thought he had misunderstood her.

“I met one of my relatives, and he told me things about the curse. Things I didn’t know. The second Natural born into the Duchannes family can Claim herself. Lena can choose.” It all came tumbling out, so many things she had longed to share with him.

John was shaking his head. “Wait a minute. What relative?”

There was no stopping now. “Abraham Ravenwood.”

John stood up, towering above her. “Abraham Ravenwood, the Blood Incubus? He’s dead.”

Sarafine jumped up. “No. He’s alive, and he can help us save Lena.”

John was studying her face as if he didn’t recognize it. “Help us? Have you lost your mind? He’s a blood-drinking Demon! How do you even know if anything he told you is true?”

“Why would he lie? He has nothing to gain from telling me that Lena has a choice.”

John grabbed her by the shoulders. “Why would he lie? How about because he’s a Blood Incubus? He’s worse than a Dark Caster.” Sarafine cringed beneath his fingers. It didn’t matter if John called her Izabel; her eyes were still golden yellow, and her skin ice-cold. She was one of them.

“He can help Lena.” He’s helping me, too. That’s what she wished she could tell him.

John was so angry he didn’t notice how her face had crumbled. “You don’t know that. He could be lying. We don’t even know if Lena’s a Natural.”

Sarafine felt something rising inside her, like the crest of a wave. She didn’t recognize it for what it was. Rage. But the voices did. He doesn’t trust you. He thinks you’re one of them.

She tried to push the thoughts away and focus on John. “When she cries, it rains. That isn’t proof enough for you?”

John let go of her shoulders and ran his hands through his hair. “Izabel, this guy is a monster. I don’t know what he wants with you, but he’s playing on your fears. You can’t speak to him again.”

Panic welled up inside her. She knew Abraham was telling the truth about Lena. John hadn’t seen the prophecy. But there was something else. If she couldn’t see Abraham, she couldn’t control the voices.

John was staring at her. “Izabel! Promise me.”

She had to make him understand. “But, John—”

He cut her off. “I don’t know if you are losing your judgment or losing control, but if you go anywhere near Abraham Ravenwood, I’ll leave. And I’ll take Lena with me.”

“What did you say?” He couldn’t mean it.

“If what he says is true, and Lena has a choice, she will choose Light. I will never allow any Darkness into her life. I know you’ve been struggling. You disappear all day, and when you’re here, you look distracted and confused.”

Was it true? Could he see it on her face?

John was still talking. “But it’s my job to protect Lena. Even if it’s from you.”

He loved Lena more than he loved her.

He was ready to walk away and take her daughter.

And one day, Lena would Claim herself. John would be sure she turned her back on Sarafine.

Something clicked within her, two chambers locking into place. The rage wasn’t cresting anymore. It was crashing down on her, drowning her beneath it. And she could hear the voice.

Burn.

The drapes ignited, sending fire racing up the walls behind John. Smoke started to fill the room, black and dark, a living, breathing shadow. The sound was so loud as the flames ate away at the wall and spread to the floor. The fire created a perfect circle around John, following an invisible path only she could see.

“Izabel! Stop!” John screamed, his voice twisted by the roaring of the fire.

What had she done?

“How could you do this to me? I stood by you, even after you Turned!”

After you Turned.

He believed she was Dark.

He always had.

She looked at him through the cloud of smoke quickly filling the room. Sarafine watched the flames with remove. She wasn’t standing in her house, about to watch her husband burn to death. He didn’t look like the man she loved. Or even a man she could love.

He’s a traitor. The voice was perfectly clear now, and there was only one. Sarafine recognized it right away.

Because it was her own.

Before she walked away from the house and the smoke, her life and memories that were already fading, she remembered something John used to say to her. She looked into his green eyes with her gold ones.

“I’ll love you until the day after forever.”





Lena fell to her knees on the step beneath me, sobbing.

I wrapped my arms around her, but I didn’t say a word. She had just watched her mother kill her father and leave her for dead.