Unfamiliar (Unfamiliar Series #1)

Chapter 47

I can't speak.

I try to think of something snarky to say but my mouth refuses to work. The breath is still stolen from my lungs. I can only lie there, my jaw feeling like it has been wired shut. If I were to have my teeth clench any harder I was afraid my teeth would shatter.

I abandon trying to speak, finding it useless and instead try to look for the others instead. Astrid and Indigo are sitting in a heap not too far away and I feel myself go limp as they dazedly blink at me.

They're alive.

For now.

It was a grim reality that was settling on all of us if Diana didn't make it on time.

There is a welt dripping blood from Indigo's cheek, her breathing fast and loud enough I can hear her from where I'm collapsed in the grass. Astrid's messy ponytail has come undone, one of her eyes swelled shut as she grimaces and sits up. There is fury in her one good eye that could spark a fire as she blinks at her uncle with unbridled rage.

"The glory of the Hallewell clan, the truth finally coming out that we're a bunch of genocidal psychos," Astrid hisses. "I always wondered where our curse came from."

"That's no way to speak to family," the headmaster chides as he readjusts the cuff on one of his sleeves.

From the outside, it could be a simple squabble with how calm his tone is. There was something eerie with the way he addressed Astrid, like she was simply a child throwing a tantrum at a family gathering.

"You're not my family," Astrid snarls as she glares back at him, her eyes briefly flickering to me.

"But I am," he counters in a low tone as he crosses the graveyard to where Astrid is crumpled.

He tries to take Astrid's chin in his hand, jerking her head up so she is looking into his face. She shakes him off and bares her teeth at him.

"If you hadn't blown your chances of attending Saint Augustine's you would have been a headmaster one day," he snaps, his voice cracking like a whip that is heavily laden with an accusation. 

"And become a murderer?" Astrid inquires sarcastically, one of her brows arching incredulously. "What a lovely opportunity, I'm sure I would have taken it!"

"You would have become a protector," Headmaster Hallewell counters as he shakes his head at her and gets up to walk several paces away, "I had hopes for you Astrid, high hopes. You had so much potential, even more so than my own daughter."

"Yeah? Then why did you murder Finn and Sophia? That doesn't seem very 'protector'-like. They weren't Unfamiliars, we know now that it was you, it had to have been," Astrid says as her eyes dart to me. 

"Do you have a plan?"  her voice floats through my head.

I shake my head slightly as I wrack my brain for an idea.

We were so utterly in over our heads.

Diana, where are you?

How long has it been?

"No, they were not complete Unfamiliars but they had the makings to produce Unfamiliars, if they had lived long enough to have children," her uncle says in an offhanded way, like he had taken care of a hornet nest rather than murdered innocent teenagers. 

The blood drains from Astrid's face, but she pushes onward and wobbles as she gets to her feet. My heart leaps for her, afraid for a moment that the headmaster will hurt her. Instead, he merely fixes her with a calm look, like he was expecting her defiance and had dismissed it as harmless. She wasn't a threat to him. But she was hopefully buying us some time.