Page 175 of Visions of Darkness

Bewildered in his disbelief.

His back hit the wall, his eyes wide, his expression gutted.

While my mother was at my side on her knees, her hands trembling so hard they rattled as she gathered me up against her chest and began to rock me. “Aria. Oh my God. Oh, my sweet girl. You’re okay. You’re okay.”

Sobs ripped from her, each pouring out, more desperate than the last. “Aria,” she whimpered.

She tried to scoot me back, away from my father, who was pinned to the far wall, her voice edged in hysteria. “I need you to stand up. We have to get out of here. I took your brothers and your sister to yourgrandmother’s like you told me to. They’re safe. I’ll make sure you’re safe, too.”

My chest squeezed. She’d listened to me, at least partially. She’d taken the kids but hadn’t stayed there herself. And when my father had told her to run, she hadn’t. She’d stayed.She’d stayed.

“Please, get up,” she begged, her hand frantic on my face as she wept. “Tell me you’re okay. We have to get out of here.”

A wave of dizziness spun my head, and I fought for coherency when the depletion threatened to drag me under. But it was different this time. There was a force that continued to run through my veins, a shivering high that stroked through me with relief.

“He won’t hurt you now.” Each of the words snagged as they scraped up my raw, sore throat.

A sound of torment echoed from the other side of the room. An agonized regret that wrenched through my father’s soul. I doubted he could comprehend the full extent of what he’d done, of what he’d nearly surrendered to, the vessel he’d become, but I was sure he still had access to the memories of the psychosis he would likely think he’d been under.

My mother’s face blanched in a coil of misery, a pasty, mournful white, full of misunderstanding and misconceptions. She frantically brushed back the matted locks of hair stuck to my sweat-drenched face. “You came back. You came back. And he—”

She choked on the last, unable to give voice to my father’s actions.

“How could he?” She cried out her sorrow.

I took her hand and tightly wrapped mine around it. “He didn’t know. It’s not his fault. His mind wasn’t his own.”

Sobs continued to tear from my father, and his face was pressed in his hands as he rocked. “Aria, oh God, I don’t ... I’m so sorry. I’m sorry. I don’t understand. I wouldn’t ...”

He choked off the last because I think it was clear that he would have if the Ghorl hadn’t been stopped.

I couldn’t respond, my focus on my mother.

Confusion and doubt twisted her expression, and I knew she was worried that my father might have suffered the same delusions she’d believed that I had, only his had turned violent.

I wondered if she could ever truly hear me.

See me.

Believe me.

I started to whisper my truth, but a scream tore from her when the front door suddenly burst open. She gathered me tighter against her, her arms shields as her attention flew up to the person who raged through the open door.

Pax.

His white hair struck in the bare light, his marred face slashed in ferocity, his pale, pale eyes flaming with white fire.

My mother went weak, and a strangled sob hitched in her throat.

Shock and fear and disbelief convulsed in her being.

Pax’s attention volleyed between us and my father, who was speared to the wall by terror.

His rugged jaw clenched, and I could feel the war go down in the middle, part of him wanting to rush across the room and put a final stake in my father for what he’d done. For what he’d nearly caused. Forever believing him the catalyst that would be my end.

But it was his love, his devotion, that brought him to me, though his movements were slowed as he approached.

“Aria.”

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