Antebellum Awakening (The Network Series #2)(65)

The cloying, teasing tone of her voice almost broke me.

“I won’t do it!” I yelled in desperation. “I won’t kill my father!”

Miss Mabel stood up.

“You signed the contract.”

“Then I’ll die!”

Miss Mabel smiled and made a tutting sound with her teeth.

“A lovely story it will make, don’t you think? You kill your father and spare me the annoyance of having to do it. Or, since you insist on being so noble, you die on your seventeenth birthday and your father, so upset, wallows in misery and can’t save the Network. In the meantime, I kill Mildred and take control. A happy ending for everyone! Do you understand your purpose now in all of this?”

“You’ll never beat the High Priestess,” I snarled. “She’s stronger than you and you know it.”

Miss Mabel’s eyes blazed with a sudden fire.

“There may be someone in the Central Network stronger than me, but it certainly isn’t Mildred, you daft idiot,” she cried. I flew back with a violent slam, hitting the wall with a grunt of pain.

Her words poured through me like poison, shriveling what little life I still had inside. Gone, all of it was gone. Grandmother dead, Mama killed. Now I would die, which would destroy Papa. Would he be able to cope with my death and function as High Priest at the same time? If he couldn’t then the Central Network, already bruised, would fall to pieces.

“Why are you doing this?” I demanded, shoving away from the wall, loathing my guttural desperation. “Why?”

Her eyes flashed again.

“Because I can.”

“That’s a lie!” I cried. “You’re doing this for a reason. You have to be!”

“Oh Bianca,” she drawled, rising to her feet with the smooth grace of a specter. “Aren’t you tired of unqualified witches holding power? Mildred had her day. Now it’s my turn.”

“It’s about May, isn’t it?” I asked, pressing into the anger with wild abandon. “You never lived up to her expectations, did you? You weren’t good enough! So you left her at the castle to die alone while you celebrated. You didn’t even see her before they killed her for treason.”

Miss Mabel moved so fast all I saw was a flash of white before my back slammed into the wall behind me again. Her hand wrapped around my neck and anchored me there, my feet dangling an inch from the floor. Despite her fury, her eyes remained calm and cold.

“Don’t meddle in things you don’t know anything about,” she whispered. “May had the power to crush your soul. She deserved to die alone. She earned her traitor’s death.”

She released me with a flick of her wrist. I crumbled to the floor, gasping for air. All the emotions in my heart boiled, building up inside me, threatening to explode. Maybe I’d shatter from the inside out. All this power would vent through self-destruction, and the only thing that would break at the end of the day was me. Yes, I wanted to beg. Let me break. Let this agony end.

“Was it because Angelina didn’t want you?” I asked, coughing. “Was it jealousy that May had power, but you didn’t?”

Miss Mabel’s nostrils flared into a sneer.

“You know nothing, Bianca.”

“I know you hated May,” I said, struggling to my feet. My inner dragon roared, pushing me to goad her more. “Probably because you were so much like her but still not good enough.”

An explosion threw me backwards. I collided with the wall again, only this time several books fell on top of me—one dropped onto my nose and another hit the side of my head, slicing open my ear. Once the barrage of books stopped, I extricated myself and stood up, dizzy. A warm trickle of blood ran down my upper lip.

“Had enough?” she snarled. “You’ve turned reckless, Bianca, and it’s made you stupid. All that power doesn’t mean a damn thing if you don’t use it properly.”

Reckless.

“I’ll never kill my father for you,” I said, wiping the blood off my face. “I’ll never kill anyone for you.”

Miss Mabel rolled her eyes.

“Then die on your birthday. I certainly don’t care. I have my own plans in motion, and they don’t hinge on you.”

My fingertips curled into my palm, stinging and painful. What would happen if I let myself go? Would I try to destroy her?

Would it destroy me instead?

“Keep fighting that power, Bianca. It certainly is growing, isn’t it? I can’t wait to see you when I get back. No doubt you’ll really be out of control by then.”

She picked up the little reticule on her box with a sly smile. I looked around the room, realizing that several of her belongings were missing from their places. Empty spots littered each bookshelf in an unusual disarray.

“Back?” I asked, nearly choking over the word.

“I have business to take care of elsewhere for the next couple of months. I will come visit you in the Central Network on your birthday, of course, to see the fulfillment of our contract. Whether that means your father’s death or your own, I really don’t care. I’m sure it’ll be fun either way.”

The cold tile ripped away from my feet, and my surroundings turned to inky blackness as she transported me away. I fell into it, grateful to leave, and let the magic go.