Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty

Josie

Mother—Delilah—whatever her name was led us into the woods like a witch taking us to her cottage. I half expected her to turn around and blast the ones she didn't need to the moon.

It wouldn't surprise me. Sadly, nothing surprised me anymore.

Kellan stayed quiet beside me but reached for my hand after several minutes. I had a plan. It was vague, and I wasn't sure it would work. My knowledge of my mother was one thing we had in our corner.

The sad, pathetic corner we did have.

Mother stopped several feet from the portal and gestured for us to go inside.

"How do we know you aren't going to close it and leave us there with Deidamia?"

"Does it look like I have the spindle, Josephine? Stop wasting my time. I'm already pissed that you gave it back to her to save this relationship," she said, waving her hand at the two of us.

Her lack of caring stabbed me in the stomach. I'd never felt more detached from my mother than I did in that moment. Even though she"d taken off her mask of truth, there was an invisible veil that kept me from her. She was untouchable. She didn"t seem like a real person. She was ... frightening.

Stepping forward, I felt Kellan hovering behind me, not wanting to let me go.

"We'll go together," he whispered into my ear.

The warmth of his voice soothed me and helped me stay in the present. My body wanted to block all of this out, this nightmare, but he kept me there. He kept me grounded. He wrapped his arms around my waist and leaped forward. My hair swirled around my head as the portal sucked us back into the realm we'd just escaped.

We were tossed around while clinging to one another. For a brief moment, I prayed that the portal would take us far, far away. Somewhere Mother couldn"t find us.

Kellan clung to me as we were flung onto the hard ground. He tried to turn to take the blow, but the wind separated us. I hit the roots of a large tree, and pain shot into my back. It was a reality check.

Yep, I"m awake.

Kellan's shadow moved over me, and his hands cupped my face. "Are you okay? Breathe, Josephine. Breathe."

I gasped for breath, attempting to bring in a lungful of air to no avail. I inhaled sharply, feeling pain in my spine.

The sound of the portal disappeared, and Mother walked over to look down at me with concern. "You're stronger than that, Josephine. Get up."

Kellan stood up swiftly as I began to catch my breath and glared at my mother. "I understand you're fixated on this spindle and yourself, but she is your daughter. Regardless of your selfish intentions, she is still your daughter."

Mother glared at him. "That you've known a few weeks, and suddenly, you're in love. Come off it. And don't tell me how to treat my daughter."

Kellan helped me to my feet. I searched the ground for my bag and found it tucked away underneath a bush. It wasn't until I stood up that I realized we were back in the forest that bled into the dark one.

I'd never wanted to go back in there again.

Kellan stepped beside me. "How is your back?"

"I'm fine," I said. "I'm curious as to how Mother thinks we can help her with the spindle. Ernest is the only one with powers. She wants you to kill her own sister, and I can't fathom why she needs me here."

Kellan placed his palm on my shoulder, drawing my attention to his face. "Your mother thinks you have powers. She wants you to use them."

Fear slammed into my chest. I"d never cared about being like my mother before. Now, I would rather die than turn out like her. I couldn"t, and wouldn"t, conjure up this magic, so she could kill her own sister. It wasn"t in the cards for me.

I wanted a normal life. As normal as one can get with an immortal soulmate and demented family. I wouldn"t do it. I had to end this before it started.

I chuckled. "I don't have powers. I must have taken after my dad. I don't have them, and I don't want them. I would try to conjure up some magic to appease her."

Kellan swallowed and ran his thumb against my bottom lip. "I love you, too, ya know. I hope you know that."

The sound of him saying it warmed my heart. It slid over me like velvet. I wanted to wrap myself in the words and sleep in them. They"d never felt more real to me than in that moment. When Jacob said them, it felt overused. Like he thought it was what I wanted to hear.

This was different. This fed me in ways I didn"t realize I was starving. "You should after everything you've done to save me."

The corner of his mouth lifted into a small smile when Mother clapped her hands. "Enough," she said. "Please come join the land of the living. We're going to get ourselves together before we face her."

Fern and Ernest both stood to the side. They'd been dragged around just as much as I had during this sideshow from Hell. It made what I was about to do easier. "I need Josephine's help to get the spindle. Kellan and Ernest will take on Deidamia to defeat her. You two will strike first, while Josephine and I take the spindle back home. Little Faerie, you can go home. I don"t care."

"Oh," I said. "Just like that, right? Kellan can't defeat Deidamia until she's in her dragon form, Mother. That's at dawn. We have a few hours before they can distract her."

She pressed her mouth into a hard line. "I know that. We'll wait until then."

Silence dripped over us. I shifted on my feet wondering how we got this way. How had my summer home before adulthood turned into such a cluster of mess? Memories of my family rolled around in my mind. It was the light before the tunnel.

A farewell to the mother I thought I had.

I cleared my throat. "I'm hungry," I spat.

She looked angrily at me. "Always hungry at the wrong times," she hissed. "Nothing has changed, has it?"

I dropped my bag and then bent down to my knees. "I brought some food from Kellan's house. Anyone else hungry?"

I could feel my mother's glare on the side of my face at my nonchalance. Hell, I could feel everyone staring at me. I began to pull out the food and sat it on the ground. I opened the lid to the leftover soup Ernest had made in the snug thermos and the small plastic cups we would use as bowls.

I settled back against the tree and took a sip. Mother seemed uninterested in the food and began to pace. Her nerves had me on edge.

Kellan wrapped his palm around my thigh and squeezed.

Fern poured herself a cup and sat on the other side of me. "Are you okay?" she asked. "That was a gnarly fall."

"I"m fine," I said under my breath.

My thoughts were focused on my mother. The minutes ticked by when she finally sank down to the ground and poured herself a cup of soup.

I settled my eyes on the forest floor and waited. Everyone"s eating disappeared, and I listened to my own heartbeat pounding in my ears. I wasn"t sure my actions were right, but something told me there was no other choice.

My nerves rattled along inside of me. I didn't dare look up at Mother or the fact she was consuming eggs. She was deathly allergic, which seemed silly knowing her nature. I had cracked a few and stirred them into the soup. I couldn"t taste them, and I figured she couldn"t either.

Kellan"s silence drew my attention. I looked up at his handsome face as he took a sip of soup. Everything he"d been through at the expense of my family made my chest hurt. "Do you want to kill Deidamia?" I asked.

He looked at me curiously. "That's the plan, isn't it?"

I swallowed. "If it wasn"t the plan? Would you?"

He thought about it and nodded. "Yes. What's going on—"

Mother made a noise underneath her breath and began to slowly choke. She wrapped her hand around her neck as her eyes rounded, and she jumped to her feet.

The betrayal on her face was evident. I'd deliberately given her eggs in hopes of ending her life. The guilt inside of me would slowly suffocate me. I could feel it growing. She"d raised me. Loved me, I think. Despite her actions, she"d never hurt me, and I was hurting her.

I was killing her.

I'd never seen her go without an Epi-Pen before or medicine. Her throat would close up, and she'd lose air to her brain. I stood up as she fell to the ground.

"What's going on?" Ernest asked.

"I gave her eggs. She's allergic. This is your chance to leave if you want. Mother won't last long, and dawn is coming. Kellan and I are going to kill my aunt. You two can leave and make it back home. No one will blame you."

Ernest looked into the distance, toward the Dark Woods and down at my mother. "I'm staying."

Fern's fairy features were full of concern. She's helped us along the way without question, but this wasn"t her fight. "Kellan saved my life," she whispered. "I want to help."

Mother gasped for breath while rolling to her back and staring up at the sky. Tears gathered in the corners of my eyes. Part of me mourned at the sight of her. I took a step, wanting to save her life, but I had no way of doing so.

I'd killed my own mother, and it was already eating me alive.

Kellan turned me away from her. "Don't watch that," he whispered. "Trust me. You don't want to watch someone you love die. You could have told me your plan. We could have thought of another way that I could have handled it. You"re going to hurt now."

"I didn't want anyone to know. What if she reads minds or something? It was better with me."

Tears began to fall from my face. Kellan wrapped me in his arms and pressed my face against his chest. There was so much pain radiating through my heart as my mother's breathing slowed, and I knew she'd left.

It wasn"t going to go away anytime soon. I could feel the pain curling and knotting in my heart. Kellan held me tight, so tight that I prayed it numbed me from the inside out.

Daylight began to rise on the other side of the mountain signaling that we had little time to ready ourselves.

I pulled back and took a deep breath, putting on a brave face for the team. "How are we going to kill her?" I asked.

Ernest stepped forward. "I have an idea."