BOOK ONE - promised series
When a new family moves to Everett Valley, Catherine vows to find out what they are searching for in her secluded hometown that doesn't normally welcome new people.
Catherine must choose between the council and her pack le...
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"I've spoken to Madame Esmara. She's expecting your statements in exactly an hour in Council Hall," she informed us nonchalantly.
But she was not finished.
"No one is to know about this incident. The council wishes it so. I expect all of you to keep your mouths shut. We will take care of this matter, and that is final."
Anger boiled up in Reece almost instantly.
"Unbelievable," he muttered, his hands curling into fists.
I could see the veins popping on his muscular arms.
"You'll take care of it? By silencing us? Would you hide away the news of our deaths too, and let someone else take care of it? We saw a dead body, Iliria. Your twenty-year-old daughter and your seventeen-year-old son saw someone with a slit throat. A dead person. And you don't even care if they're okay. Do you care about your children at all? Or must I run that by the council, like everything else?"
An icy silence spread over us like a dark cloud, no thunder following the lighting just yet. My mother pursed her lips, pressing them into a thin line.
It seemed the lighting zapped through her, first. "Enough, Reece."
Reece's hands were still clenched to fists, his knuckles as white as a sheet of paper. Like every time when Reece said something like that, mother just shut down and walked away. Whenever she had serious family problems, she was the first to run. If the problems were council-related, she preached how vital it was to stick together.
She was the embodiment of a hypocrite, but I never had the nerve to actually tell her that.
Reece had, but as per usual, she didn't care.
She got up and walked to the front door.
"Run away, just like you always do. I'm sure your problems won't ever catch up to you!" Reece yelled after her, anger thundering in his voice.
While she'd discharged the electricity inside of her, Reece caught it and turned it into a fire.
The door slammed shut, a loud bang echoing through our hearts.
"Reece, just calm down."
Although he meant well, all Emmet did was pour gasoline over an already burning flame, thinking it was water.
"Do not tell me to calm down, Emmet. We all know that I'm right. You both are just too scared to say it out loud," he spat so venomously it caused me to blink twice.
His hostility acted like an aggressive allergy, making my throat clog up and my eyes burn.
The constant battle between Reece and our mother was one that would probably never end.
"That's not why we don't say anything," Emmet replied calmly, surprising me by not nestling himself in a peaceful bed of silence like he usually did.
Every other time a similar situation had occurred in the past, the outcome was nearly always the same. Reece let his anger get the better of him, Emmet tried to calm him down but never spoke against him, and Mother would walk out not reacting to any of it.
