“Good God, man. Pull yourself together,” Graves stated without an ounce of emotion as he adjusted his tie. “I told you this was going to happen. She wasn’t to be trusted.”
What the holy soap opera was going on? Virgil Graves…was dark? Cutting deals with Samantha Reed? With Alec von Leer? Just how long had he been siding with the wrong side? I blinked at her, limp in Alec’s arms, and grew even more numb with disbelief.
“This is war,” Alec growled, shaking with rage.
“Of course it is,” Graves fired back. “And as in any war, there will be casualties. If you want a position on the Council when this is all over, you will remember who has allowed you to get away with as much as you have without any repercussions.” He rested a cool glare on him. “Hide something from me again, and the next neck broken will be yours. Now, clean up this mess. We’ve got a world to put back together.”
“Oh my God. Katy.” Bryan rushed to my side.
I couldn’t take my eyes away from my mother’s body. She might have been dark and batshit crazy, but she was still my mother. Now, she was gone. Permanently. I finally looked away and turned, falling into Bryan’s arms.
Graves walked over to Spencer, still trapped in a cage of roots. As he approached, Spencer shrank back. What kind of power did this guy have to instill such fear into two of the most powerful elementals I’d ever met? “You were brought here to unite elementals and leechers, not to make a fool of yourself harassing my prophecy.”
His prophecy? I was no one’s prophecy. I pushed out of Bryan’s embrace. “You’ve been behind everything. Alec finding me at that science center before I was ever part of this world. Bringing Spencer here to shatter my confidence. Even having my own mother turn against me. It’s been you this entire time. How can you be so cruel?”
“I’m uniting a world, Ms. Reed, by any means necessary. That doesn’t make me dark. Or light. Good. Or evil. I told you before, we have a world to heal. For that, I’ll need your help.”
“My help?” I motioned to the shit show around us. “You sent innocent people to prison. Y-you killed my mom.” I shook my head, steeling myself. There’d be time to mourn later. Right now, I had to think of the world I’d sworn to protect. With someone like Virgil Graves heading the Council, my world would be no more.
“Desperate times call for desperate measures. This is your deciding moment, Ms. Reed. Are you willing to help me put this world back together?”
I had to be the one to stand in the way. To do that, I had to play my part and kiss all the right asses. “What would I have to do?”
The guys all looked at me like I’d lost my mind. I probably had, considering the plan I began to concoct in my head. Get back to the academy. Rally the troops. Gain the Council’s trust. Have them lower their guard.
Then strike.
23
The blow of losing my mom had dulled to a tolerable pain after a few weeks of crying myself to sleep. At least I had one of the guys with me every night so I didn’t have to fall asleep alone. Most of the time, it would be Bryan, since he lived in the same building, though sometimes, Clay would pop over from Ventus.
Leo had passed his final tribunal with flying colors and graduated from the academy. Since the Council was light on members, they’d offered him a position hunting alongside Rob. Now they lived together in the cabin, which I would have never guessed would happen. Not those two. They got along about as well as Clay and Bryan, but ever since Leo had grown into a trio, they seemed to be developing quite the bromance.
When Samantha Reed had turned on everyone at the party and revealed her true self, she’d been labeled dark elemental enemy numero uno, so when news of her death went public, the elemental world rejoiced. Instead of the man who’d snapped her neck going to prison for murder, Virgil Graves had practically ridden back to Deception on a float. He’d elevated his status from the man who’d defaulted into the role of head of the Council to the hero who’d save our world from annihilation. Some even hinted at him being the true prophecy.
What-fucking-ever.
He was the darkest of them all, hiding in plain sight as he made deals with both sides. Why couldn’t anyone see that? There was an entire bus full of elementals who’d witnessed what he’d done, both from bargaining with the dark side and killing my mom when she’d double-crossed him.
But no. No one spoke up. No one claimed to have seen what I’d seen. Why the hell not?
They didn’t want to go back to Carcerem. That’s why.
So, Virgil Graves had played both sides and literally gotten away with murder. What was that saying? Burning the candle at both ends will get you burned. That sounded about right. And I had to play my part by pretending to support the bastard. Disgusting.
Even worse, I had to make nice with his ice queen bitch of a daughter, which was the worst form of torture. After everything she’d done to me, I had to suck it up and convince her daddy that I was a goddamn nice person.
I finished enough webisodes of the comic and uploaded them on scheduled releases so I didn’t have to worry about it until the holidays, when we’d be on a break from the academy. I’d already coordinated to stay in my old place above the gym Stace still kept up in exchange for working during the day just like I had all summer.
Leo was going to be here any minute to take me to the movies. I hadn’t seen him in
