Chapter Forty-Four Aria

Chapter Forty-Four

Aria

Attempting to not make a sound, I pushed down on the door latch. It clicked, and the metal gave without any resistance. I felt it like an extended hand from the sinister.

A foul invitation.

I swallowed around the knot in my throat as I carefully stepped inside and quietly shut the door behind me, trying to keep myself concealed.

Darkness reigned like an oil slick, heavier than it should be when a light glowed from the kitchen off to my right. I crept forward, my footsteps muted as I slunk through the shadows of the room toward the disturbance I could feel emanating from that side of the house.

Where normally the house was filled with laughter and the commotion of the day-to-day, now it was silent.

So silent I could choke on it.

My chest arched against the suffocating weight, and my mind whisked to Pax in his car outside, parked on the street, my spirit reaching out to discern where he was.

Drifting.

I didn’t know how I could feel it, but I could. I could sense him as he floated.

The man was caught between sleep and awake, hovering in that shimmery plane of nothingness. I swore that I felt the moment he slammed into Tearsith one second later.

He was asleep, which meant he would immediately descend.

A shiver rolled the length of my body as I forced myself to move forward, through the swaths of gloom that crawled across the floor. The only sound was the faintest swish of the soles of my shoes as I moved across the carpet.

Still, everything screamed. The walls and the ceilings and the toxic air.

The disturbance flailed the closer I got to the opening to the kitchen, and the barest sound breached the atmosphere.

A whine.

A moan.

A plea.

Chills lifted the hairs on the back of my neck before they spread out and rushed, skimming just beneath the surface of my skin, and my pulse that had already been thready sped in frantic beats.

Erratic and out of control.

From where I was hidden at the side, I quickly stole a glance through the threshold and into the kitchen. It was lit by a single dull light above the dining table. Stillness echoed back, no sign of anyone around.

Inching through the opening, I kept my breaths as shallow as possible.

I flinched when my shoes made a squeak against the gray plank tiles, and I completely held the air in my lungs as I tiptoed deeper into the kitchen, moving between the island and the dining table that sat beneath the window.

My gaze swept from side to side, searching for any trace of my family.

Alarm scattered through my senses, and a whimper crawled my throat when I broached the far side of the island and my attention moved to the left.

My mother was there, sitting on the floor with her back tucked into the corner of the kitchen cabinets. Her hands and feet were bound, and a piece of duct tape covered her mouth.

Even though I’d known my father was being led by the Ghorl, I was pummeled with aggrieved disbelief that he could do this to her. After all the years of loving each other? How? How could it come to this?

Horror blew her eyes wide open when she saw me, and she thrashed like she was the one who thought she needed to save me.

She released an agonized wail against the barrier of the tape and fought to break her bindings.

Panic zapped through my nerves, and I started to rush for her, to beg her to stay quiet so I could get her out of there, only I froze when I felt the movement from behind.

In a flash, the temperature dropped by fifty degrees.

It was like standing in Faydor. In the freezing cold that sank all the way to the bone.

Sickness roiling in the pit of my stomach, I eased around, too terrified to breathe as I faced my father.

He was sitting on the floor on the opposite wall where he’d been hidden by the table. His feet were planted so casually on the floor, his demeanor one of careless nonaggression, though he spun the tip of a hunting knife against his knee.

He had on the same brown khakis he’d always worn, but his mind was so far gone that he didn’t seem to notice that blood saturated the material from where the knife had punctured his flesh.

And his eyes ... they were as cold as the room.

He cocked his head to the side, slowly, though there was no missing the fact it was full of menace. He tsk ed. “You’ve been such a naughty girl, Aria—running away like that and making your mother worry about you.”

A sob slammed against the tape on my mother’s mouth, and she jerked her arms, trying to loosen the rope that bound her wrists.

It was so difficult to speak, but somehow, I found my voice. “Dad, you have to listen to me ... The voices in your head are lying to you. You don’t have to hurt anyone. You don’t. You have to resist it. Find the love that you have for Mom. Your love for Brianna and Mitch and Keaton. Remember how you promised to always protect them. Remember. ”

I begged it, praying to reach him, to touch on the place inside him that remained unblemished. Where his goodness was unmarred. I couldn’t believe that he’d fully succumbed. Couldn’t believe that there was nothing worth saving in this man who’d raised us.

Cared for us.

The memory of his deep laughter rolled through the back of my mind. His infectious energy as he’d wrestled with the boys and made them howl. His cheers for Brianna at her dance competitions. The way he’d run his hand down the back of my head when he dropped me off at school and promised that he loved me.

Only now his laughter was cruel, and he slowly pushed to standing, a phantom that rose in the night. The knife was slack at his side as he took a single step toward me. “Oh, but you’re the reason for it, don’t you know? It’s your fault I have to make sure your sickness doesn’t run through the rest of them. We can’t have those types of delusions tainting the world. Your filth. I’m simply cleansing this place of you.”

His voice twisted on the last phrase, becoming high-pitched, not his own.

At his vicious words, pain speared me to the core, and I held on to the counter behind me, telling myself he wasn’t the one who was issuing the vile insults. I stalled, silently chanting prayers that Pax, Timothy, and Dani would find the Ghorl.

Prayed that their feet would carry them to where I needed them to go. Prayed that there was a chance we could pull this off.

Prayed, above all else, that I could get my mom and siblings out of this. Since she was here, I had to believe the kids were, too.

He took another step forward, and I began to ease back in an attempt to lure him from the kitchen. The farther away from my mother, the better.

He clucked his tongue and his brown eyes boiled black, his voice so twisted it wasn’t recognizable. “There’s no need to run, Aria. I’ll find you.”

He took another step, and I grabbed a chair and swung it around to create a barrier between us. I held on to the back, leaning in his direction, trying to reach him without getting too close. “Look at me, Dad. Look at me. Remember me. You love me. You have love inside you. This is not you. The voices are not your own. You can’t let them control you.”

Hissing, he sliced the knife through the air. I jolted back on a gasp. The tip of it had missed my throat by a mere inch. He roared when he realized he hadn’t made contact, and he grabbed the chair and threw it out of his path.

Wood clattered against the tile as it toppled over. He stepped around it, and I kept backing away, trying to anticipate his moves, what he would do next.

But I knew there was nothing inside him that was rational. He’d lost touch. Had lost logic. Had lost soul.

Still, I tried. “Do you remember when Brianna was born? Do you remember holding her in the chair in the living room, her chest against yours as you patted her back? She used to wind her fist in your hair and tug it as she cooed. You swore she was saying she loved you. She was. She was telling you she loved you, and she’s always loved you as much as you love her. You love her. You love her. Just like you love the rest of them.”

I kept hoping to knock him out of the trance, to make him come to without it having to come to more than that, but I was losing that hope.

The hollowness in his eyes promised I wasn’t doing anything but agitating him more.

I took another step backward, inching toward the living room.

He slashed the knife toward me again.

I cried out in surprise when it nicked my left shoulder.

Manically, he grinned. “We’ll give you some scars now. Real ones.”

Oh God. I choked over the sob that threatened to wrench its way out, but I forced myself to focus. To remember my purpose of coming here. I needed to get him away. Alone.

Torment ripped from my mother, though it was garbled by the tape.

I took another step backward, but he didn’t follow. Her cries had stopped him, though I sensed no sympathy in his vacillation. There was only hate. Vicious, cruel hate as he changed course and slowly walked around the island in her direction.

Grabbing a fistful of her hair, he forced her onto her feet and put the knife to her throat. She yelped, and I saw what swelled and overflowed in her eyes.

She was begging me to run. To save myself.

Tears blurred my own, and I wanted to run across the kitchen and throw myself between them, but I knew better than to make any sudden moves.

I carefully inched forward, and I did my best to keep the tremors from my voice when I forced out, “It’s me you want. Let her go. She has nothing to do with this. I came back because you want me. Because he wants me. ” My voice dipped in emphasis on the last words.

My father’s nostrils flared, and for a second, he contemplated it before he sneered. “You’ve always been a little liar, Aria. I won’t let you get away with it this time. Come here to me.”

I stalled, hesitating, my attention trained on them both.

When I hadn’t moved, he shook my mother hard. Her cry was muffled when just the tip of the knife pierced her throat.

“Come here,” he hissed.

Gulping down the terror, I inched around the island, moving closer to him. My hands itched to reach out and touch.

To heal.

To bind.

But more predominant was the repulsion that quickened in my veins. The warning that it might be too late for him.

Still, there was something there. Something that made me believe there might be a chance.

Even if there was the tiniest flicker, I would fight for him.

“Let her go, and I’m yours.” The words were crushed gravel from my tongue.

Black eyes gleamed, and the sickness that oozed from him crawled along my flesh.

Sticky and wet.

I took one more step, and I lifted my hands in surrender. “Free her. Let her go. And I’m yours.”

He wavered, torn between getting to me and the truth that saving my family was the only reason I had returned. The bare logic he possessed at odds with his thirst for death.

I nearly wept when he gave in and ripped the tape from my mother’s mouth.

She gasped in shock, inhaling desperate breaths as she coughed.

He didn’t slow, taking the knife and cutting through the rope in one swipe, first at her feet and then her wrists.

“Aria,” she wheezed. “Oh my God, Aria.”

She tottered forward like she was going to come for me, and he shoved her hard. “Run, you stupid bitch.”

My mother’s eyes were wild. Darting between the two of us.

Torn.

Terrified.

“Run! Get the kids and get out. Run to the neighbors and call the police!” I shouted. “Hurry! You have to get them out!”

Her brow pinched and her head slowly shook, as if she was going to refuse, but I shouted once more, “Go! You have to get them out of here before it’s too late!”

There was one strained beat of resistance before she finally relented and snapped into action, which I knew she was only doing because of my brothers and sister, and she fumbled around the island and out into the living room.

It was enough to distract my father for one fleeting second.

It was the only opportunity I had, and I took it.

I grabbed a pan that had been left on the island and whipped it around. It whooshed through the air and smashed into his wrist in a flurry of pain and desperation.

He lost hold of the knife, and it clattered to the floor.

A roar barreled out of him, a sonic boom of fury. Rage spiraled through the disorder that instantly struck in the room.

A match and hate and gasoline.

It combusted in dark, wicked flames.

He came for me at the same second I flew for him. My hands were outstretched in a bid to take him by the face. If I could just touch him. Reach him. See into his mind so I could free him from his chains.

My hands landed on his cheeks for the briefest flash. They were seared at the contact, and agony streaked up my arms.

I choked on the pain, and I struggled to hold tighter, to push through the darkness in his mind that clouded everything.

Only a blow came out of nowhere as my father drove a fist straight into my stomach.

It rocked me back, and I could barely remain on my feet as the air was knocked from my lungs. I bent in two, gasping, battling to stay oriented.

He dove for me, and he sent me flailing into a chair at the table. A shock of pain ricocheted up my back as I struck the wood. He threw another blow that landed at the side of my face, and it sent me toppling the rest of the way onto the tabletop.

He leaned over me, trying to pin me down, and I struggled to get to him, reaching for his face. I finally got my palms against the bristle of his cheeks.

Lightning struck and thunder rolled, and visions of darkness crawled through my mind. It was there.

The Ghorl.

The one we’d hunted.

Desolation whipped around it.

“ Kill her. She’s the one responsible for ruining your life. She’s poison. Your wife will never forgive you. It’s over. It’s over. End her now. Then end them all. ”

A cry hitched at the base of my throat at the wicked intonations, and I hung on, pressing harder against my dad’s jaw, trying to possess the light. To stretch it out. To bind the evil that zapped like the lick of an exposed electric wire.

A violent shout screeched from my father, and he ripped himself back as his hands flew to his face.

Heat blistered my palms, and invisible flames burned up my arms. I wondered if his cheeks felt the same as he roared and stumbled and floundered in an enraged circle.

And I knew there was nothing I could do to stop him, to stop this, when he finally regained his composure.

It was too late. Too late.

Because he stared at me in nothing but stark, unmitigated hate. Death brimmed in his eyes.

A torrent of fear rushed through my veins, dousing my spirit.

I’d wanted to be strong, and I searched around inside myself for the piece that had promised to fight. But I thought maybe Timothy had been right and the beast was bigger than all of us.

Beyond our power.

But it was me it wanted, so I forced myself up off that table as he started to stalk back in my direction, and I ran out of the kitchen.

“If you want me, then come and get me.”

I sprinted through the living room, my feet pounding across the carpet toward the door. I had to lure him out. Make him follow. It was their only chance.

I could feel him behind me. Harsh breaths panted from his mouth, his determination steel.

I had to make it out ahead of him.

A scream tore up my throat when a hand pushed me hard at the upper back. It sent me reeling forward, and my arms pinwheeled as I tried to remain upright, but there was no subduing the forward momentum.

I lost footing and flew, and I slammed against the floor.

My elbows took the brunt of it, and a new pain splintered up my singed, fiery arms.

He flipped me over and straddled me.

I wailed, bucking up and trying to get free, wheezing, “No, no, let me go.”

It all felt so similar to that day when they’d taken me to the facility.

When my lot had been cast.

When my fate had been decided.

I’d known then that everything would change. Had known somewhere deep inside that I would meet my end.

And I knew right then that I had.

Now the wholly unrecognizable face of my father glared down, distorted by pure hate. “You ruined everything. It was you. You!” he snarled.

I fought, thrashing my arms and kicking my feet. I whipped my head from side to side when he wrapped his hands around my throat.

He squeezed.

Squeezed so hard it closed off my windpipe, the oxygen locked in my lungs. Nothing could get in or out.

Terror bulged my eyes, and I struggled to get a breath, to war, to do anything to change what I already knew was coming for me.

He squeezed and squeezed, and panic lacerated my thoughts.

My mother. My brothers and sister.

No.

I couldn’t let him do this.

I had to stop him.

I had to fight.

Consciousness began to ebb, flickers of light and flashes of darkness as the world began to fade.

I could feel the life in my veins bleeding out.

Horror slammed me when my mother was suddenly there, yanking at his back and screaming, “Get off her. Get off her! That’s our daughter. Please, oh my God, please. Aria, oh my God, Aria!”

He tried to shove her off with his shoulder without letting go of my throat.

“Wait your turn, bitch. I’m going to take care of you next.”

Sickness churned, and that urge that had first found me in that facility roiled, building from deep within, beyond the tide of succumbing. It was a wave that gathered strength and rose to take power.

The impulse to touch him overwhelming.

Somehow, I managed to find the strength to jerk my arms free from where he had them trapped beneath his legs, the man too lost to the need for my execution to notice the shift.

He kept squeezing my throat as I reached up and gripped his face with my hands.

The same familiar cold streaked through my failing veins, my hands afire, an inferno burning me alive.

But I could see.

I could see the Ghorl.

“ End her now. Don’t let go. It’s her fault. She’s the one who destroyed this family, not you. She’s poison. ”

Tightening my hold, I tried to wrap my mind around it, to contain it, to push out the light from within and bind it.

I fought with all of me to separate the black spirit from his.

But it was so powerful. So strong. Still, I projected the light. The Ghorl wailed when a tendril whipped out and struck it in the side.

My father’s hands loosened for the bare flash of a second, and I inhaled a shattered breath, sucking oxygen into my aching lungs.

I hung on with everything I had.

Something different passed through his eyes as my mother continued to beg him to stop, confusion glittering through his gaze.

“Cal, why are you doing this? Please, stop. Listen to me. Oh God, please stop.”

The Ghorl regrouped, massive and enraged.

“ Kill her now. Do it. It’s already too late. There’s no turning back. ”

My father’s hold tightened again, and I fought harder, with all the strength I possessed, pulling from the deepest place inside me.

In a place that shouldn’t exist.

The Ghorl shrieked as a glance of energy hit it against its middle, and a piece of it fell away, burned to ash.

For one second, it lurched back, but then it was right back on me, the venom in its voice filling the room.

“ I will destroy you. I will destroy you all. None of you will survive. ”

I nearly lost hold with the force of it, with the horror that it was speaking directly to me.

I fought just as desperately as it did, my father’s hands its weapons as he squeezed so tight that I thought he was going to crush my throat.

And the lights began to flicker again, the oxygen growing too thin, my body succumbing to my human limitations. My heels dug into the carpet as I tried to buck up to knock him off.

Blackness gathered at the edges of my sight, and still I tried.

The Ghorl suddenly roared, rearing back as streaks of light hit it from all sides.

Shock rounded my father’s eyes, confusion bounding, his mind stuck in two places.

His hands trembled, his decision wavering.

It was enough—enough for me to press further into his mind, and I gripped his face as tightly as I could as I peered at the Ghorl who was being attacked on all sides.

Pax.

Pax was there.

He was flanked by Timothy and Dani, and Ellis and Josephine were on either side of them.

Relief slammed into me.

They found him.

They found him.

Each stood glowing, rippling with power, vibrating with the light that streaked from their beings.

“ Fight, Aria, fight. ”

And I could feel Pax’s words through time and space. Through realms and eternities.

“ Fight. ”

And I did. I fought. I stretched out the light.

Wisps and tendrils of electric current struck it like arrows.

It flailed and screamed and writhed, whirling around as it tried to retaliate.

Fragments of fire lashed out, but each missed my Laven family.

We all gathered every dreg of strength we possessed and harnessed it.

Pouring out our authority.

Searching for the good.

Fighting the evil.

“ End it, Aria. You’re the one who possesses the true strength. You’re the only one who can do it. ”

Pax’s belief filled my mind.

I gathered the last crumbs of strength I had left, and I projected the rays of obliterating light.

And in a flash of glowing darkness, the Ghorl was crushed.

Nothing but dust.