Page 3 of Mostly Shattered

I can’t ruin them.

Where did I leave off? I strangle the pen like it might try to escape my hand as I continue to write. The pressure of the ballpoint deepens on the paper.

I know how you tried to protect me as a baby but couldn’t when the monsters came. They wanted me as leverage over the Devine empire. You had to give me up, and I forgive you for that. It was right that you gave meto my father and Lady Astrid. They protected me. I don’t like it, but it was right.

The reason you don’t remember our meeting is because my adopted brother, Conrad, followed me to California. He killed my parents and my half-brother Anthony on my twenty-eighth birthday. He killed other people, too, but that’s a long story and I’m not writing a book. He wanted me out of the way so he could inherit the Devine empire for himself. Stupid, really, since there is no way supernaturals will respect a mere mortal in a position of great power. Inherited wealth would have only gotten him so far. Anyway, it wouldn’t be long before a vampire brood or shifter clan or warlock coven or necromancers or goblins…

I think she’ll get the point. I scratch out part of the sentence.

…supernaturals burned everything to the ground and danced on all-things-Devine’s ashes.

Conrad tried to kill us, too—me and you. When he took the magic amulet from me to harness the power for himself, it backfired and killed him instead. It gave all the deaths that should have been mine to him, but in doing so, it brought me back to the first time I should have died—the fire at my twenty-eighth birthday party. That is why you don’t remember any of this. No one else does either. The troll magic set things right, I suppose, in the grand scheme of everything, but it also took away everything I had gained in those erased weeks.

The amulet is now broken. It can’t protect me, and I know I’m vulnerable to…

A familiar icy chill crawls over my skin. My body involuntarily stiffens in fear. I can’t help it. He’s found me.

Fuck. All I can do is wait.

Dogs bark louder, appearing more energized and on edge as they run toward their owners. Animals can sense things humans can’t. I imagine they notice the ripple of hate emitting from my brother’s vengeful spirit.

“I dare you to send that to her,” Conrad whispers in my ear. I can’t see him, but I feel him, and I smell the lingering scent of ash and decay that always chokes the air when I’m near his ghost.

They say hindsight is twenty-twenty. For me, I think it’s more forty-forty, or sixty-sixty. Is that even a thing? There were so many obvious signs I should have realized about Conrad’s true nature, but I had been willfully blind to them all. I gave him leeway because he had the same hard childhood I did. I thought he was misunderstood. Turns out, everyone else was right. I was wrong.

Again, to say life has given me trust issues is an understatement.

I rip the sheet from the notepad, not finishing it. Crinkling the letter tightly in my fist, I feel the frustration boiling inside me. I shove thecrumpled ball in my pocket next to the broken amulet. “I’m not sending anything.”

“If you contact her, you know what will happen,” his voice warns. “I’ll finish what I started.”

The sun is bright, but I no longer feel it. I don’t rise to his baiting, mainly because ignoring him is one of the few defenses I have, and it annoys the fuck out of him.

“Do I need to show you what I’m capable of?” Conrad’s body comes into transparent view. His back is to me, and he faces Paul and Diana.

“I know, Conrad,” I say in a rush to placate him. “I’m not telling them who I am. I’m just here. It’s a park. We’re strangers.”

This is a time I wish I had magic so I could zap him into eternal rest. Unfortunately, until Conrad, the most I experience I have dealing with ghosts was Mr. Farty—aptly named for his smell when we were kids—the residual haunting stinking it up in the country estate’s smoking room.

Conrad killed so many people, including our parents, our brother Anthony, his own druggie prostitute birth mother, and my sweet Paul. Fate might have reversed those deeds, but I still feel the pain. I can’t watch his ghost torment Paul and Diana.

“We made a deal. You leave them alone, and I don’t talk to them,” I say. “I kept my word. I have said nothing about you to anyone, and I won’t.”

That isn’t exactly the deal. Conrad allows me to see Paul and Diana because he knows how it tortures me that I can’t have a normal life with them. He likes the threat looming over my head. If he kills them, that threat goes away.

It’s a fucked up delicate balance.

“If you hurt them, I’ll tell everyone what you did,” I threaten.

He finally turns to look at me. The hollow pits of his eyes are a demonic black. I wonder if it’s a face he puts on to scare me or an actual manifestation of his evil that he can no longer hide.

“Ooh, you’ll tattle to mommy and daddy?” He mocks.

“You think Lady Astrid can’t find a way to exorcise you?”

“She can try, but not before I tear it all down.” He keeps laughing. I hate the sound.

His voice reminds me of all the lies. He’d been my best friend. To know I mean nothing to him…

---