Kiss of Fire (Imdalind, #1)(49)

I picked up my pace, trying to ignore the constant rumble on the floors above. I made it to the car and threw myself in, starting the engine. It roared to life and the garage door opened in front of me; the sound of the engine, its cue to rise.

I gunned it.

Ryland had taught me to drive this car almost a year ago, but I hated to because I could never keep the speed reasonable; being behind the wheel felt like I was in the middle of a video game. My heart rate sped up even faster as adrenaline added itself to my fear. I tore out of the garage and down the street, the odometer reaching one hundred thirty miles per hour in just the first few seconds.

I caught a glace of Ryland’s house as I drove in front of it. The third floor was in flames. I wanted to stare. I wanted to call the police. I wanted to do something. However, Ryland’s instructions echoed through my ears; his warning of what his father would do to me. I strengthened my resolve and turned the corner. If I stayed at this speed, I could get home in five minutes. The challenge would be to avoid traffic and the cops.

I struggled to keep my speed high, but once I made it into the city I was faced with traffic lights and other cars. It was maddening to move so slowly. I hit the steering wheel in exasperation as I stopped at a traffic light, again. I screamed my frustrations and fear at the red light just as it turned green and then I zoomed between cars in my eagerness to get home.

Moments later, I pulled up into the no parking zone in front of my apartment building. Out of habit, I looked up to my third floor window and my heart dropped. Even though it was night, my mom was sure to stay up to make sure I got home okay and share a play-by-play of the evening, but the window was dark.

I tore out of the car, leaving the engine on and the door open, to run up the stairs. With each step, the necklace bounced against my skin, its temperature steadily increasing. I reached the third-floor landing and froze; the door to our apartment was wide open. I just stared at the dark expanse of space beyond my apartment door.

Something in the back of my mind told me to turn around and leave, to just go to Ilyan, but I couldn’t. The fluttering panic in my heart pulled me forward. I could taste the danger on my tongue. I could hear the voice of reason screaming at me to get away. At the moment though, I could only think of my mother.

I stepped into the apartment and waited for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. Figures and shapes began to emerge from the black that surrounded me. I looked from one out-of-place object in the room to another until my eyes rested on an arm protruding from behind the half-wall that divided the living room from the kitchen. The fingers of the hand curled softly; the bright yellow fingernail polish were all too familiar.

I screamed out in fear and pain as I made my way to her, my knees sliding against the linoleum as I dropped to her side. She lay on the floor of the kitchen, her body pressed against the painted wood cabinets. My hands floated above her, desperate to do something to help her. I could feel the racking sobs of my agony threatening to break through. I grasped for her wrist, trying to remember how to take a pulse. I thought I felt something, but could not be sure that, through my shaking hands and loud sobs, I had found her pulse at all.

“Mom!” I screamed. I could hear my own agony line my cries. “Mom! Answer me. Please be alive.” I was still at her side when the door to our apartment slammed shut and two dark figures moved in front of it. I grasped my mother’s hand as I turned toward the intruders, my wailing sobs dying down.

“Well, well, well,” one of the two spoke with a light, mocking voice. “Is the little half-ling crying over her mortal mother? How disgusting.”

“Don’t give her any sympathy,” the other said; a man whose deep voice made him seem much older than his body led me to believe. “After all, we were the ones who had to watch her in his room year after year.”

“And all the while, she plotted to kill the prince.”

“We would have done better to kill her as a child.”

“If only we had known she hid the mark.” The two chattered back and forth as if I wasn’t there, their wicked voices making my skin crawl.

“Kill? Kill who? I wasn’t going to kill anyone,” I gasped, my voice breaking with tears. I clung to my mother’s hand, desperate to feel her squeeze back. I needed her to sit up, to tell these wicked men to leave, and to just make everything better. In the deepest portion of my heart though—a part I was trying to ignore—I knew that it would never happen again.

“Oh, don’t bother to lie,” the man with the deep voice sneered. “We know all about the vile things inside your head.” He took a step closer and I crept backward, my mother’s fingers slipping from my grasp as my back pressed against the bathroom door.

“Cail,” the first man spoke with a touch of boredom to his voice, “just get it over with and kill her. There’s no use in playing with her.”

“Kill me? I haven’t done anything wrong! I don’t know what you are talking about,” I screamed at him in desperation as he continued to move forward.

I knew, in my heart, it was too late. I had failed Ryland. I had told him I would run, and here I was, trapped and about to die anyway.

“Could it be?” Cail’s voice was soft, but I could hear the amusement behind it. “Do you really not know?” He took a step forward, letting the light that filtered in through the window illuminate his face. Cail—the bodyguard from the Rugby game, the one who had accompanied Edmund, the boy who had constantly looked in my direction, the one who had seemed to sense I was there.