5. Elara

Chapter 5

Elara

" I s that thing loaded?" Sasha asks in a wet whisper.

The truth is, I have no idea. My mother is paranoid enough to ensure the gun's chamber is filled with bullets, but she's also scared enough to leave it empty in case it's ever used against her.

Mom stares at me, into me, with wild, untamed hatred, her eyes shining with furious tears over the barrel of the gun.

"Fifty-fifty," I say to Sasha, who deserves nothing but honesty.

" Fuck. " Sasha inches back a step, her hands raised. "How good is her aim?"

I'm too focused on my mother to answer. Her finger tenses on the trigger, knuckles blanching white.

"I know who you are," she snarls. "And you're not my daughter. You're not going to do to her what you did to my son. I'll make sure of it."

Sasha trembles, a choked sob escaping her throat. "Please, don't, Mrs. Wraithwood."

I raise my hands slowly, palms out. "Mom, listen to me. You don't want to do this."

" I am not your mother! "

"You are." The sob finally comes, swelling in my throat before releasing with a painful keen. "You're Caroline Wraithwood, your son was Maverick, and I'm your daughter, Elara."

Her eyes, manic and darting, turn dull and lifeless with a single blink. "My son is gone."

I nod despite Sasha frantically warning, "Don't say anything to upset her!"

"But I'm still here. I'm alive, with you," I plead, my hands raised, fingers shaking. "Maverick's with Dad now, and you and I have each other. You'll always have me, Mom."

With a single jerk of her chin, her paranoia returns. " You're not her ! You were in here, in black, and now you've shapeshifted because I saw you trying to hide. I saw you despite your attempts to deceive me, you fucking devil. And now you beg me? Make me think you're Elara? Liar. Liar, liar , LIAR!"

"Change tactics," Sasha pleads to me. "Change them real quick, El."

But I'm at a loss for words as my mother raises the gun higher, its barrel aligned with my chest.

"Mom," I sputter out, desperate and yanking at any memory I can to prove to her I'm real, "I heard you. I heard what you said to me when you thought I was asleep, when you snuck into my room when I was eight, remember?"

She pauses, her roaming stare locking onto mine.

Drawing on the memory, I say, "You'd just come home from your first gala since Dad died. It was so hard for you, you said, so impossible to do without him even though eight years had passed and you should be better by now. But then you …" I swallow against the swelling in my throat. "You said how you remembered who was waiting for you at home. Your reason for surviving, for enduring for as long as you have. Me. I was your last piece of Darian Wraithwood, and I was so small, your baby, his baby, and I needed you. You couldn't leave me, and I helped you keep going. Do you remember that? How could I know that if I wasn't truly Elara?"

Mom's grip loosens on the trigger. "Elara?" she whispers.

"Yes, Mom." I nod, tears streaming down my face while I keep my hands up. "It's me. I'm here."

Her gaze darts to Sasha, then back to me. "You're... you're not one of them? You're not here to take me? Not like your father?"

The mention of my father in her harrowing question sends a jolt through me. "What do you mean like Dad?"

Mom's eyes fill with an eerie, distant look. "He was born into it, groomed for it."

Sasha and I exchange shocked expressions. Her arms must ache as much as mine, the way we're holding them aloft, not daring to lower them.

"Dad was part of the Cimmerian Court?" My question comes out in a hushed murmur.

"Mavvy." Mom's hoarse voice is barely audible, yet it commands my full attention. "He knew... knew too much. Tried to shield us all."

My heart clenches at my mother's words, the weight of Maverick's actions suddenly pressing down upon me. What did he uncover, and why had he felt compelled to protect us at such a cost?

"Hidden truths," Caroline continues, her gaze piercing through the haze of her delusions. "In the walls, beneath the floors, in the heart of our houses."

I exchange another look with Sasha, seeing my own confusion reflecting back. The Cimmerian Court, my father, my brother, the ruby Heart…

Mom mutters under her breath, lowering the gun slightly as she retreats into her head.

I hesitate, desperate to ask her more, to understand the giant skeleton my family has kept hidden. But more questions will only agitate her fragile mind.

Sasha touches my arm, nodding toward the door. "We need to get her help. You can't do this by yourself anymore, El."

"But I…" I wrench my stare from Sasha back to my mother, who no longer responds to us, lost again in her cursed world.

She was forced into this breakdown, I want to argue. Someone was actually here, going through our things, scaring the shit out of my mother, breaking her where she was already fractured…

The argument turns to ash in my throat.

Tears slip down my mother's cheeks as she stares at spirits I can't see, the gun dangling in her hands. It doesn't matter who incited her tonight. Sasha could've been hurt. Killed. Mom could've killed me, too, and she'd never recover from that.

"I love you, Mom," I whisper.

She doesn't respond.

Sasha tugs at my arm, a pained grimace on her face. "How do we—I mean, can we leave her here with the gun while we call the EMTs? Or do we … take it?"

I gently pull out of Sasha's grip, taking another step, then another, until I'm close enough to reach out and touch Mom.

"Give me the gun, Mom," I say softly, holding out my hand. "You don't need it anymore."

She lifts her gaze, and for a moment, I see a flicker of the woman she used to be—strong, loving, fierce in her devotion. Then her eyes cloud again, and she shakes her head.

"No, no, I have to protect you. From them. From the Court. They'll come for you like they came for your brother, your father..."

Fighting to keep my composure, I push away the burning questions threatening to consume me. I have to focus on the present, on getting the weapon out of her hands.

"I know, Mom. And you have protected me all these years. But now it's my turn to protect you." I take a deep breath, steeling myself. "Give me the gun, and let me take care of you."

A heartbeat passes, then two. Mom's eyes search my face, as if looking for a sign, a reason to trust. I let her study me, pouring all my love, all my desperation, into my returning stare.

The door creaks behind me, and I stiffen as someone else's footsteps calmly wander in.

No . Not when I was getting through to her.

I risk turning, meeting the eyes of the person ruining everything?—

—is it him? Is it the burglar dressed in black?—

And see Kaspian dressed in his impeccable suit, holding a polished handgun and directing it at my mother. "Kaspian? What the—Get out! Stop pointing that at my Mom!"

His flat, snake-colored stare regards my mother. "Put down the gun, Caroline."

Mom screams, spittle flying onto the barrel of the gun as her grip tightens and shakes madly.

"You're one of them!" she shrieks. "Here to take me, to silence me like you did Darian and Maverick!"

Then I do something stupid. Mind-numbingly dumb. But I can't stand by and watch Kaspian, who shouldn't be here, doesn't belong here, threaten my mother.

I position myself between them, Kaspian's gun at my chest, my mother's at my back.

"Oh, Jesus fuck," Sasha cries out.

The skin around Kaspian's eyes reacts with a minuscule flinch at my boldness, that I'm now staring down the barrel of his gun, but his aim doesn't waver.

Kaspian's finger curls around the trigger. "Last chance, Caroline. Drop your weapon."

"Kaspian, don't," I gasp out. "She didn't mean to. She's not in her right mind."

"Oh, I think I've grasped that part of the situation."

"I'd calmed her down!" I shout. "She wasn't going to hurt us."

Kaspian acts like he doesn't hear me. "Put down the gun, Caroline, or I shoot your daughter."

My stomach turns to ice, though I hold his stare, ensuring the silent accusation in mine speaks louder than words ever could. "You wouldn't."

The Kaspian who stands in front of me is a stranger. This isn't the man who promised to break me so he could put me back together with feverish, orgasmic care. His face doesn't burn with that brutal oath, nor does his cold, calculated expression crack the way it did when he pushed into me the first time.

No, I'm looking at the face of a killer. A trained, brutalized assassin who follows orders, not pleas.

"I'm not here to debate, beastie. Your mother is unstable and a threat."

Mom's shrill voice pierces the air behind me. "You won't take my daughter! I won't let you!"

I raise my hands, palms out, my heart thundering. "Please, both of you, just stop! Kaspian—leave. Why did you even come?"

His heartless expression doesn't shift. "There was a situation with Cav that led me to believe something might happen to you, too. I tracked you here."

I bare my teeth once he voices those words. "You were the one who broke in? Who tore through Maverick's room and put my mother in this state?"

He blinks, his hardened exterior pulling before snapping back. "Wasn't me." His finger tightens on the trigger as he looks over my shoulder, and I stiffen. "Last warning, Caroline."

He's not going to shoot me. I know this in a place deeper than bone or marrow, surer than a heartbeat.

Sasha inches closer, her hands still raised. "Kaspian, please. She's not well. We need to get her help, not threaten her."

At that moment, time slows.

I read the certainty in Kaspian's eyes that he will shoot Mom and can sense the madness in my mother's at my back. I feel the weight of the burdens they both carry, the cursed legacies that have driven us to this point.

And I make a choice.

I lunge forward, reaching for Kaspian's gun. He reacts instantly, twisting away, but my fingers brush the barrel, throwing off his aim. The shot rings out, deafening in the confined space, and I hear Sasha scream.

I whirl around, terrified of what I'll see. But my mother is unharmed, standing now as she points her gun at Kaspian.

"You missed," she hisses. "But I won't."

"Mom, no!"

Too late.