Page 41 of The Black Lotus
She growls, her knuckles going white around the scissors. “Until she wasn’t.”
I stop fiddling with the box cutter, my breath catching in my throat. My mother had cancer. She was dying. The treatments were not working. I was by her side the whole time. She was nevernotdying. She had a moment where it looked like the treatments were working; she was brighter, more herself, but she relapsed. My heart breaks, my eyes burning as tears blur my vision. She got so sick, she couldn’t even leave her bed. I was there when the doctor told us she didn’t have much time left. My mind races, refusing to believe her lies.They are lies… right?
“What do you mean?” I whisper, my voice hoarse, resuming my cutting with a new sense of urgency.
“Now you’re asking the right questions!” She taps my nose with the scissors, a manic glee in her eye. “But before I tell you the truth, don’t you want to know why I'm killing you instead of turning you in for your crimes?”No. I want to know your so-called truth.
The first strap snaps, quietly enough Sharon doesn’t hear it. A sigh of relief leaves me as I move the blade to my other hand to cut the other. Her question is irrelevant; she’s obviously going to kill me in order to have my father all to herself. Turning me in would mean I was still a part of his life. But I’ll play her little game, for now, until she tells me whatever truth she claims to know. Her incessant need to explain everything, like a villain would, is grating on my nerves, but the longer she talks the higher chance I have of getting free. Whatever she tells me will decide her fate; will I run or will I kill the woman who wears a mask?
“Why not turn me in?” I ask, my eyes piercing hers.
“Because,” she sneers, “you would still be in your father’s life. We both know he would visit you every chance he got. All turning you in would accomplish is you stealing my time with him. The only way to ensure we were truly there for each other is to kill you, and while I was devising a plan, I got the letter.” A feral grin stretches her cheeks too wide. “I got the hit on your head from Cynthia.” All my movements cease as her words hit me like a ton of bricks.Sharon is one of the killers after me? It’s kill or be killed–she has to die.She said she came from a family that did things. Are they a family of serial killers like what Aster grew up with? She wears her mask, never slipping up to let her true colors show; a woman who others would fear. But I’m not like everyone else and she knows that, but she doesn't know my true face. She will cower away when she finds out whoItruly am.
She turns around, fiddling with something I can’t see on the tray in front of her. My hands are finally free, my fingers tingling from the returned blood flow.Now I just need to figure out a way to cut my feet free while keeping her back to me.I reach down, cutting the strap on one foot, never taking my eyes off my prey. Before she turns back around, my back snaps up, and my hands go back to where they should be. I hold my breath, scared that heavy breathing could alert her, and I wait for her to turn back around.
She squints, then shakes her head.She should learn to trust her instincts.“What luck! Not only could I kill you, but I’d be rewarded for it too. But here’s the kicker, the one I was shocked about, she included another letter, one just for me.”
She turns once more, returning to what she was doing and I bend down quickly, slicing my last leg free but keeping it locked against the leg chair after kicking the rope under me so nothing looks out of place. If she got close enough, she could see, but by then she’d be dead. I don’t think she’s smart enough to realize I’ve cut myself free since she was too stupid to check my body.
She holds up a letter, one I can only assume to be the hit on my head; the words that are tempting people to put the nail in my coffin. I want to read it to see if Nate had been telling us everything or if he’d left anything out. But I need to be patient, that can come later.
She clears her throat, reading aloud in a Massachusett accent. “Sharon, as you can see, I have put a hit on your future step daughter’s head, but my sources tell me you’re already looking for ways to get rid of her. I think we can come to a mutually beneficial arrangement. If she is still alive, then the others have failed. I hope you won’t fail me like they did. My foolish son has fallen for her, and she is distracting him from his work. Be a dear and get rid of her for me; not only will you be compensated generously, minus my cut of course, but you will finally have her father all to yourself. Sounds like a win/win to me. If you agree, send in your bid to the untraceable account in the other letter. I hope you don’t disappoint me. Cynthia.”
Sharon drops the letter, I watch it slowly fall to the ground as if it were a feather floating in an invisible breeze. “Who would have thought Aster was the Patchwork Killers’ son! I wonder if he takes after his parents...” Her finger taps her bottom lip, contemplating as she eyes me with unveiled disgust. “Since you’re still alive, I doubt it.”
“Wouldn’t you like to know,” I taunt, wanting to cause her the same curiosity she’s awakened in me.
She clicks her tongue, her sneer answers enough. “Would you like to know the truth before I kill you?”
There she goes again.Gritting my teeth, my fingers flex around Lena’s blade. I honestly couldn’t care less, I just want to kill her, but I need an opening.And if I’m honest with myself, a tiny part of me is curious as to what she is talking about.
“Yes,” I state simply, refusing to give her anything more.
“Pity.” She pouts, pursuing her lips as she shakes her head. “I was hoping for more begging. Oh well.” She shrugs, “maybe you’ll beg for your life instead.”
I bite my lip to keep back the snarky comeback on the tip of my tongue and losing my chance to distract her.
“The truth is… I killed your mother.”
The room spins, the weight of her words washing over me like a wave trying to pull me under. It can’t be true. My motherbeggedme to kill her. I suffocated her. I ended her life.
“You’re lying,” I breathe, shaking my head from the words trying to claw their way in.
“Technically, you delivered the final blow, I’ll give you credit for that, but I was poisoning her, giving her the long, slow, painful death she deserved.”
Everything stops; time itself freezes. My head sways as my body fights the gravity from the need to tip over. My hand grips the box cutter so tight, my hand shakes as my thumb presses hard on the slider to slide open the blade. Running my finger along the edge to dim the anger rising in me, I welcome the pain, feeling the blood dripping down my hand. My beast peers through my eyes, stalking the pathetic excuse of a human before me.When the moment is right, this blade is going right into her throat.
“As her nurse, I had to give her the daily medicine she needed, but no one knew I was adding an extra ingredient. Granted, she wasn’t my first victim, just the first to not die by my needle.”
She turns around to grab an injection off the table, speaking while she loads it. “The thing about this particular drug, if you use too much at once, it will kill you. Good thing I perfected the dosage on your mother.”
Red consumes my vision, all rational thoughts abandoning me as I leap out of the chair.
TWENTY
ASTER
Panic like a snake surges through me, slithering up my neck, and constricting my throat, stealing every drop of oxygen from my lungs.Hold on.My foot presses harder on the accelerator, the GPS loudly telling me how to get to my vixen. Luckily, Sharon’s farm is out in the middle of nowhere, so all the roads are back roads that I can speed down without worrying about getting stopped. Plus, I have a scanner telling me where the cops are hiding.
