More rocks joined the fight, hitting me in the chest and forcing me to the ledge.
My mom spoke from somewhere in the chaos, and I heard her as if she delivered the message in her icy tone right in my ear. “I am the prophecy. The one and only. The supreme elemental. Only one stands in my way.”
I went flying over the cliff and plummeted hard, the rocks weighing me down. The deafening wind rushed by as I fell and blew the leaves from my face. Oh, shit. The rocks at the bottom of the cliff were coming up fast.
Calling on the darkness inside me, centering the cold energy at my core, I used it to power a blast of air that slowed my descent. I stopped inches from being impaled on a rock.
Panting in fear and disbelief, I hovered there for several seconds as I processed what the hell happened. My mom had just tried to kill me. Holy shit show. My mom. The woman who’d given me life had just tried to end it.
I carefully lowered myself to the ground and lifted my gaze to the top of the cliff. It was too far away too see if she stood up there, peeking over the side. Which meant she couldn’t see me either.
I had two choices. I could lift myself back up to the ruins and continue to battle my mom. Or I could teleport to Stace and tell her my mom had gone dark. She’d know what to do. I definitely liked my second option better than the first.
My mind made up, I popped out to find Stace.
20
I hated her. I literally hated my own mother. There, I said it. Well, thought it. She’d caused me nothing but angst since she’d returned. I’d forgotten all the crazy things she used to do as I grew up, crazy mean things that used to confuse the hell out of me and made me and my dad walk on eggshells around her. We never knew which Samantha Reed we’d get day by day. One day, she’d want to spend the afternoon gardening together. The next day, she’d scream at me for touching her garden and lock me in my room. That time she’d taken me to the park and left me there. The few times she’d convinced me that monsters were real, and one lived under my bed. All the times she’d made me feel like I would have been better off if I’d leave and never come back.
Since I didn’t, she did.
Until now, when she’d returned, endlessly torturing me, and had just tried to kill me.
You’re definitely not winning Mom of the Fucking Year, woman.
Stace didn’t answer my text, so I dialed her and brought the phone to my ear. It was about to go to voicemail when she answered. “Katy? Where are you?” She sounded frantic, her response clipped, tight.
“I’m looking for you. I need to tell you something.”
“Oh, Katy.” Did she just choke as she said my name? “I wish you would have come to me first.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I know what happened.”
“You do? So, you know my mom is dark?”
“Oh, Katy.”
I wished she’d stop saying that. “Stace, tell me what’s going on.”
“Sweetie, when the Council comes for you—”
“What?” I cried and glanced around, easily spotting the wall of men in black four-deep marching toward me. “Why would the Council come for me?”
“Don’t fight them, Katy. Don’t make this any worse. I’ll come to see you as soon as I can.” She ended the call.
I turned to run and spotted more Council members approaching from the opposite direction. I’d have to teleport. That was my only chance to escape.
“Oh, no you don’t.” Rob popped in behind me and hooked me by the waist. As much as I tried to teleport, his call blocked mine, forcing me to stay. “Calm down, Reed. Running is only going to confirm their suspicions.” He leaned closer, whispering in my ear. “I told you telling Stace about that ward was a bad idea.”
“What are you talking about? What’s going on?” I punched at his hands and elbowed him in the ribs, earning an oof as the air whistled out of his lungs. “Let me go. I didn’t do anything.”
“Katy Reed!” Albert Stephens bellowed as he led the pack to my left. The pack to my right, led by Unibrow, didn’t look any happier to see me. Stephens nodded at Unibrow, who stepped forward and slipped something cold and hard around my neck, snapping it in place with a triumphant smile on her pixie bitch face.
My strength immediately drained, and I collapsed in Rob’s arms, unable to hold myself up. What the hell did that bitch just do to me? I reached for the metal ring, yanking at it, but it wasn’t going anywhere. The light radiating off it sank into me, robbing me of energy. My whole body turned to rubber as if the contraption removed my bones.
“Thank you, Mr. Emmett. You may go.”
“That wasn’t the deal,” Rob argued and held me tighter. “I stop her from escaping, you let me sit in on the hearing.”
“Step aside or be tried with her.”
“I’m not leaving her.” He squared his shoulders.
“Then so be it.”
“Let him stay,” a familiar female voice stated above the crowd. The men in black parted, and out walked my mom, her cool gaze focused on me. She had bruises on her face that weren’t there when she’d attacked me, and she now walked with a limp. She’d changed from the robes into a fancy black suit and had her chestnut hair pulled back, revealing more bruises on her neck. “She needs help. Maybe he’ll get through to her. I tried, and she attacked me. My own daughter attacked me.” She buried her face in her hands.
Oh, pahleez.
“You’ve got that backward, Sammie. It wasn’t
