Page 108 of PET

His answer comes as a cool, sharp blade pressed against my neck as we enter an unfamiliar house.

“Jesus, Beau…”

“I have to. Now be quiet, it’s showtime!”

We move through a small kitchen, moving toward a door that’s cracked open. Beau kicks it open to reveal basement steps going down into a flickering orange haze. He’s not nice about it when he shoves me forward, the knife digging deeper into my flesh.

“Who’s there?” a woman’s voice calls out from somewhere in the basement.

Beau shouts loudly, “Son of Reaper number six hundred seventy-five! I found someone you’re going to want to see.”

“Very well, come down.”

I stumble down the rest of the stairs as Beau shoves me. My eyes adjust to the scene in front of me, taking it all in—hundreds of flickering candles light up the room in an orange glow, several people in the same black hooded robes as Beau stand about the room, my boys are on their knees with knives to their throats like mine, my uncle Patrick standing before a table with a woman… is that my mother on the table?!

“Mom!” I cry out.

She looks up the best she can in her position, sobbing when she sees me. “Billie, no! God, please help us!”

My boys thrash to get to their feet, shouting profanities and death threats to the two men who won’t let them come to me. I scream when they’re both smashed over the back of the head or punched in the gut to bring them back to their knees.

“No! Don’t hurt them!” I beg.

“Enough!” a woman’s voice screams, and it’s the figure in the animal skull. “One more fucking peep from your spoiled, slutty mouth, and I’ll have him slice it wide open.”

I seal my lips shut, my tear filled gaze moving back to my mother on the table. She’s alive! Though I’m not entirely sure how, or what the hell is even going on. And she’s filthy, as if they’ve dragged her through a mud pit and left her out to dry before bringing her down here.

“Shall we continue, please?” the leader asks in an annoyingly calm tone of voice.

“You can’t pass power without the presence of my father,” Christian mumbles from his folded over position across the room. He’s holding his gut as he leans back to look the skull bitch in the face. “So you don’t have thepowerto exchange shit.”

The room falls silent before the woman stalks toward Christian, my heart pounding as I watch it unfold. She reaches her hand out from beneath the robe, grabbing his face with her long fingers and tilts his head back.

“Then it’s a good thing I killed him this afternoon while you chased your little pet through the woods, isn’t it?”

“You’re lying,” Christian rushes out without a smidgen of remorse on his features. I’m sure after everything his father has put him through, this is a relief.

She turns his head this way and that, tsking her tongue in disbelief. “The Society did a wonderful job making you their plaything, Christian, because you’d never be strong enough to rule.”

Shoving him back into the men standing behind him, the woman turns and mumbles without any emotion in her voice, “Kill them both.”

“No!” I scream, thrashing in Beau’s arms to get free.

I stare over into both of my boys’ eyes and beg the universe to make a miracle occur. They can’t die. If they’re murdered before my eyes, I’ll take this knife out of Beau’s hand and slit my throat. I can’t and won’t live without them.

They fight for their lives, but the two men behind them are beasts, easily overpowering both of them. I’m sobbing, begging and screaming for them to stop.

Time seems to move in slow motion as I watch a memory flash of my time with them—all the kisses, touches, bites, and fucked up moments. The way they found love for each other while they found it for me. This can’t be how our story ends; it just can’t. There isn’t anything poetic about this ending, though some might beg to differ.

My stomach knots up when I think it’s the moment their throats are slit, but something else happens entirely, as if I’m in some kind of weird dream.

Everything happens simultaneously—fast like a blur, yet slow enough that I caught every single movement. The two men release their hands from around my boys’ necks as they drop their blades. As if in a single motion, they surge forward and grab the woman wearing the animal skull, pinning her arms to her sides while placing a blade upon her throat next. Patrick is flat on the floor as the man who stood at my mother’s feet holds him there. Beau has released me to assist holding Patrick down. The man at my mother’s head turns on the robed figure in the corner, shoving him to their knees.

And in one synchronized movement, every hood is removed and the animal skull drops to the basement floor. Everyone seems to freeze, taking in the identity of each hooded member with shock.

Beau’s younger brother holds CJ captive in the corner. CJ’s mom is trapped between the two men who are always with the Barretts, while Beau himself kneels on Patrick’s back, beside a man who’s strangely familiar.

“You’re going to regret this, Beau.”

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