Dagger of Persephone (The Brother's Grimm, #2)

+ Chapter Thirty-Two: The Bitter Truth +

I couldn't believe what I was seeing, "Aunt Sara? How is this possible? you're dead." I took a few stumbled steps back as the shock settled a haze over my mind. She hadn't aged a day from the last picture I had seen of her. She should have been in her mid-fifties but here she stood not looking a day older than twenty-five.

"Is that the story your mother told you?" Her tongue clicked off the roof of her mouth as if she were about to scold someone, "Do I look dead to you?" She lifted a frosty brow, pink lips quirking up as if it amused her. I felt like my brain was going to explode under the force of the new reality I was being thrown into. I was in a world that no longer made sense to me.

My parents were dead.

Alby was dead.

Cassie had been sacrificed.

And my Aunt Sara who was supposed to be dead was, in fact, very much alive. How was any of this possible? Perhaps the truth was that I was still dreaming, trapped in a nightmare unable to wake up. The thought made more sense to me than anything else. It was what I wanted to believe. I didn't want to live in a world where the alternative was true. It was too hard to process a reality where I never got to say goodbye to my loved ones. That they had simply been there one moment and the next they were gone, taken from me.

Sara took a step forward, lips kissing her teeth as she looked at me as If I were a pitiful being, "Oh sweetness, this must be a terrible shock. I am sorry to be the one to break it to you like this. I do wish the timing could have been different..." Her tone was cold, showing the falseness of her words she was speaking, "Your mother wasn't the woman you think she was. Your mother was a liar. A very talented liar. She was keeping things from you and your siblings, secrets that weren't hers to keep."

"Don't listen to her, Poppy! She killed them!" I cast a look over my shoulder at him, the veins in his forehead popping up from the force of his rage. He was staring her down with murderous intentions, "You killed your own sister, you psychotic bitch!" Darren let out a sound of desperation as he struggled in the ropes that kept him bound to the tree. His words broke through the shock I was feeling. This was my reality. This was truly happening, and my parents and Alby were actually gone. I wanted to fall to the ground as the weight of that knowledge continued to sink in. I felt my knees shake and I stumbled back another step.

Aunt Sara turned her gaze in Darren's direction, expression becoming a little stiff, "Yes I did. And do you know, what?" She took another step in their direction, "I would do it, again. Your parents and all the other druids like them were trying to keep you all from the truth, keep you from reaching your full potential. They were the bad guys, not me."

"If our mother was keeping something from us..." I spoke up, lips trembling as I continued my retreat toward Darren, "Then she must have had a good reason for doing so." I wanted to believe that was the case. It was hard not question why she had told us our Aunt Sara was dead when she wasn't, but none of that mattered anymore. All that mattered was making sure they hadn't died in vain and that those responsible for taking them from us paid. 

My brain jumped back into control, eyes narrowing as I lunged in the direction of the knife. I felt my fingertips brush the hilt momentarily before I was knocked to the ground by a powerful gust of dark energy. It rushed through my being like a draft in a worn down house, finding a way through the cracks in the seams. I gritted my teeth at that burn of the frost as it nipped at my skin like pins and needles. I could hear Vaughn laughing in the background as I pushed back against the force that was trying to keep me from getting back on my feet again. I could feel my magic building inside of me, heating the blood in my veins as it hissed its own need for vengeance.