Page 48 of Infernal

“My best bet at what? Execution?”

She looked back at me confused.

“I guess you didn’t get the memo about how they tried to kill me or how they knew Mom was in the Sacred Necropolis RIGHT UNDER OUR FEET!” I was shouting at her, and I hadn’t even meant to.

“They didn’t try to kill you,” she answered humorously, as though I were overreacting to being served the wrong breakfast at a restaurant and not my attempted murder. “Besides, you have the Amulet. You can’t be killed, Jemma.”

“Iknow that. Buttheydidn’t. They had someone attack me in the woods, Tessa! They sliced my freaking throat wide open. If it wasn’t for the stupid Amulet, I’d be standing here dead!”

She made a face at the probability of that.

“You know what I mean!” God, she was no better than Gabriel. And why the heck wasn’t she shocked and appalled about our mother? “Did you hear what I said about Mom? She didn’t abandon us, Tess. They had her all this time in that disgusting underground cemetery. How can you trust anything they say?”

“Because I already knew that. Uncle Karl told me about Mom a while ago.” Her tone was cold and detached, and it sent a shiver right up my spine.

“You knew she was there?” My eyes widened as a tsunami of emotions rushed through me. “You knew she was Revenant?!”

“Of course, I did.”

I gaped at her. “For how long?”

“Does that really matter?” she asked.

“Are you kidding me right now?” I tried to control the anger broiling inside of me.

“I don’t know the specific date, Jemma. A few months I guess.”

“A few MONTHS?!” I shouted, my voice pitching higher with every syllable. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “And it never occurred to you to tell me? It never occurred to you that I’d want to know what happened to her too?”

“Yeah, it did, but frankly, I thought it was better if you didn’t know.”

“Oh really?! And what the hell gave you the right to decide that for me?” I was crying again, but it wasn’t tears of sadness. It was anger and betrayal from the one person that was supposed to do right by me.

“I was trying to protect you.”

“From what? In what kind of backwoods world of logic were you protecting me?”

“I was protecting you from yourself,” she said bitingly. “From running off and doing something stupid! And lo and behold, that’s exactly what you did.”

My eyes narrowed into two vengeful slits of rage. “Getting her out of there wasn’t stupid! She didn’t belong there! Look at her! She’s the splitting image of you,” I said and turned to the spot we’d left my incapacitated mother, only she wasn’t there. I spun around and then spun back the other way, frantically searching the room for her missing body.

“Where the hell is she?” I roared back at Tessa, knowing full well that she was behind this.

“I brought her back to Temple. It’s where she belongs, Je—”

“YOU DID WHAT?!”

Tessa flinched at my volume and then quickly recovered. “Jemma, calm down."

“How. Fucking. Dare. You.” I seethed, my hands balled into fists at my sides now, poised to strike.

Like I didn’t have enough adversaries, enough mountains to climb. I had to add my own sister to the list. Tears burned under my lids like broiling lava. I was seriously going to explode. How much more could I take?

Something was going to seriously snap, and I feared it would be me.

“Bring her back, Tessa, or I swear to God—”

“You know I can’t do that,” she answered calmly.

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