Page 156 of Memories Like Fangs
Lilah’s history with the family.
Lilah and Cooper’s plot against Byrd, including her kidnapping.
The Chicago Battle.
Cooper’s death.
Lilah’s magic being used on me and the boys.
By the time I was done, I had never felt so exhausted.
I felt it down to my bones, as if it had been carved into my soul. My body felt like it had been hollowed out and stitched together with worn, fraying threads. This weariness went beyond the sting of my injuries. It was so much more than the way my skin still pulsed with tenderness or how my limbs ached like my bones had outgrown my body overnight. Every step I had taken since we had returned from Chicago felt like I was dragging chains behind me. I could feel each muscle fiber knitting itself back together with excruciating slowness. That wasn’t the weight that made my body feel foreign and heavy, though. That wasn’t what was breaking me from the inside out.
No, that belonged to the ache of carrying too much for too long, of bearing the truth alone because I thought it was my burden and punishment alone. It felt like a curse the world itself had rested on my shoulders, and I had finally been allowed toset it down. My spine trembled from the absence of the phantom weight, trembling from its absence.
I didn’t carry guilt for losing Cooper. His fate was inevitable, sealed the moment he had taken Byrd’s father and Aunt Max’s lives. There was no stopping him from meeting my blades after that. It was only a matter of time, and he should have been lucky that he got as much of it as he did after causing my girl so much heartache. He deserved what he got and then some.
But no one deserved to bury their child.
The worst pain a person can experience is outliving their baby. As a hunter, you must think about that with every swipe of your blade, Quinny,Grandma Jane had told me that every time I used to throw knives in her backyard. Back then, I had said, “Yes, ma’am,” but I was too young to understand what it meant. Now, I had delivered that pain to someone I loved.
To my Aunt CK.
My no-filter-having Aunt CK, who gave me and my cousins our sense of humor.
My always out-of-pocket Aunt CK, who taught me not to take any bullshit, especially from men.
My wild-as-hell Aunt CK, the same woman who had taught me how to drive everything with wheels.
My loyal Aunt CK, who started my love for baking when I was only three years old, saying if I wanted to make cookies, I needed to learn on a real oven and not a damn kid’s pink toy with only two settings.
Now, the guilt of that didn’t just live in my chest. It had rooted into every part of me, deep down into my marrow?—
A soft, sweet spark flared then.Byrd. Even miles apart, I could feel her, sending me love and reassurance. Fuck, what I would give to go back to that sweet reverie with her, the one that felt like a distant, impossible fever dream now, where it was just us and our time together. I wanted to sleep with her right againstme for at least a year, to feel light again with her laughter close to my heart, to exist without the weight of my family and the expectations that came with them tightening its grip around my ribs. I wanted to heal through her love.
Then, when I could finally breathe again, I wanted to hunt Lilah with the fury of everyone she’d ever broken.
Aunt Carol-Kay stood slowly, the movement so deliberate it drew my attention immediately, pulling me from my thoughts and making me look around the room. The cousins were silent, their shoulders sagging from hearing everything once again. Cody stared down at his empty bourbon glass like his life depended on it. Nat’s expression was unreadable, but her hand gripped the neck of the whiskey bottle like it was a lifeline. Cole soothed an openly crying Aunt Tess, whose face was turned into her palms, her shoulders trembling with each sob. My mom sat on the edge of the couch with one hand over her mouth as if holding back a sound she couldn’t release. Tears streamed down her cheeks in quiet surrender. Her eyes locked on me with an expression I couldn’t quite name or decipher. Was it grief? Or, maybe, helplessness? Could very well be both.
It was Aunt Carol-Kay who froze me in place.
There were no tears on her face. Her blue eyes were glassy, sure, glistening under the lowlight. Her jaw was clenched so tight I could see the muscles straining, and her hands were curled into fists at her sides. Her platinum-blonde ponytail seemed like it had been pulled back tighter than usual, forcing her whole face into sharper relief. The set of her mouth was severe, the corners of her lips slashed into something cruel and precise.
Like one of Cooper’s stares, the thought made my breath hitch.
Her stillness wasn’t emptiness. It was pressure. A simmering, barely contained rage that I recognized. Her sadnesshad calcified into something jagged. Something terrible was about to be set forth. I could feel it vibrating in the floor beneath my feet and tickling the back of my neck.
“You just let my baby die,” she said, her voice low, haunting, and vacant. “You just let my son get killed.”
I shook my head, my brows furrowing. “No, Aunt Carol-Kay, I didn’t?—”
“YOU SHOULD HAVE PROTECTED HIM!” She screamed.
Then, she lunged at me.
The boys caught her mid-stride.
Cody took her left arm while Cole took her right. Nat jumped to her feet to help, but Mama was already in front of me, shielding me with her body from her sister, fighting her remaining sons to barrel toward me.
