Page 75 of Inside the Wicked

“Long, straight black hair, green eyes, tall, unfairly stunning?—”

“Fuck,” I mutter.

I pinch the bridge of my nose and lean a hand on the table. A quake of rage begins in my damn kneecaps and shakes through my whole body until I can’t contain it. Whatever is on the table in front of me scatters through the hall, but I barely register the commotion I’ve caused.

“Dude! You know how I feel about my shit!” Rix cries.

How many times can Alistair fucking Lanshall win before I kill him?

I’m pacing like a caged beast. It’s been twelve goddamn years, and he’s had her all this time. Because I was looking for another name—one that led me to a house fire, where I found what I thought was her body. The news broadcast her death. Her cowardly, sick father, who sold her to pay off his debt to Lanshall, appeared onscreenmourningher. I almost went to kill him that night, aged only seventeen, but I didn’t have the confidence or skills to get away with it back then, and I had a bigger plan to get back at him and Lanshall for everything they did.

I need to break something. Hit something. I march to the desk again, sights targeting Rix’s black globe, but he anticipates it, snatching it in a protective grip. I’m intercepted by Ana’s small, gentle hands flattening on my abdomen anyway.

“Rhett Kaiser.” The wavering aged voice of Oma cuts across the space as it goes silent.

My breathing is harsh, but I start coming around. Seeing Ana’s face pinched in concern, I slip an absentminded hand overher cheek as if I can take it all away. Scanning the room, more than two dozen people here are giving me similar looks, and it grates on me. Then I find Oma leaning on her cane in the doorway of her small dwelling.

I don’t want to set foot in there. The woman has a fucking superpower that makes people talk about everything they’ve buried, no matter how deep. I don’t want to talk. I don’t havetimeto talk.

I need to fuckingact.

When I begin shaking my head her cane taps the ground. “Don’t give me that, young man. You’re not setting foot out of here until you’ve set foot in here.”

“You can’t piss off Oma, man,” Rix mutters.

“She’s kinda as frighting as you are,” Adam adds.

“Go,” Ana says softly. “For me—please?”

My jaw tightens. I can’t right now. Allie is still missing. I’ve learned Kenna is alive. Jeremy is in Alistair’s network too. And right now, Lanshall and Forthson will have prime targets on my little bird for all she brilliantly pulled off.

“It’s not me who should be in there,” I say.

Ana swallows and averts her gaze.

“Will you speak to her, if not me? Please?”

“I want to be here with you.”

“You are. I’m right here.”

“Okay,” she whispers.

I take her over to Oma, and it’s not without sharp eyes of warning from her that she accepts Ana in my place.

“Thank you,” I say, giving Oma a short embrace.

She’s an absolute treasure to our network, helping people heal their trauma and learn to live with all the shit they’ve been through and continue to see in our work.

Ana doesn’t look back as she walks shyly into the room. I heard she was here before, but now she knows she’s here to talkabout herself and not just for a visit. I want to be with her, but I can’t. I don’t take my eyes off her as the door closes, and it tears me apart to see her so small and frightened.

I tear myself away to storm back to Rix.

“You can only go so long keeping yourself together with rage and vengeance,” Rix says tentatively.

“I don’t need a lecture,” I say, folding my arms and pondering the surveillance footage to think.

“You owe it to Ana to get yourself better too,” Adam says.

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