Page 170 of Visions of Darkness

Oh God. I choked over the sob that threatened to wrench its way out, but I forced myself to focus. To remember my purpose of coming here. I needed to get him away. Alone.

Torment ripped from my mother, though it was garbled by the tape.

I took another step backward, but he didn’t follow. Her cries had stopped him, though I sensed no sympathy in his vacillation. There was only hate. Vicious, cruel hate as he changed course and slowly walked around the island in her direction.

Grabbing a fistful of her hair, he forced her onto her feet and put the knife to her throat. She yelped, and I saw what swelled and overflowed in her eyes.

She was begging me to run. To save myself.

Tears blurred my own, and I wanted to run across the kitchen and throw myself between them, but I knew better than to make any sudden moves.

I carefully inched forward, and I did my best to keep the tremors from my voice when I forced out, “It’s me you want. Let her go. She has nothing to do with this. I came back because you want me. Becausehe wants me.” My voice dipped in emphasis on the last words.

My father’s nostrils flared, and for a second, he contemplated it before he sneered. “You’ve always been a little liar, Aria. I won’t let you get away with it this time. Come here to me.”

I stalled, hesitating, my attention trained on them both.

When I hadn’t moved, he shook my mother hard. Her cry was muffled when just the tip of the knife pierced her throat.

“Come here,” he hissed.

Gulping down the terror, I inched around the island, moving closer to him. My hands itched to reach out and touch.

To heal.

To bind.

But more predominant was the repulsion that quickened in my veins. The warning that it might be too late for him.

Still, there was something there. Something that made me believe there might be a chance.

Even if there was the tiniest flicker, I would fight for him.

“Let her go, and I’m yours.” The words were crushed gravel from my tongue.

Black eyes gleamed, and the sickness that oozed from him crawled along my flesh.

Sticky and wet.

I took one more step, and I lifted my hands in surrender. “Free her. Let her go. And I’m yours.”

He wavered, torn between getting to me and the truth that saving my family was the only reason I had returned. The bare logic he possessed at odds with his thirst for death.

I nearly wept when he gave in and ripped the tape from my mother’s mouth.

She gasped in shock, inhaling desperate breaths as she coughed.

He didn’t slow, taking the knife and cutting through the rope in one swipe, first at her feet and then her wrists.

“Aria,” she wheezed. “Oh my God, Aria.”

She tottered forward like she was going to come for me, and he shoved her hard. “Run, you stupid bitch.”

My mother’s eyes were wild. Darting between the two of us.

Torn.

Terrified.

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