Page 14 of Lies That Blemish
“Elaine, if you know something?—”
“I overheard him in his office… when you were in the Wilds. When word got back that you had perished, but that before doing so, you’d bonded a Talanagi.”
I leaned forward so that I could be sure to hear every word.
“And…?”
She chewed her lip. “I wasn’t eavesdropping. I’d been carrying a lot of the girls’ laundry down the hall, and a bunch of socks slipped from my hands, and I had to bend down and pick them up?—”
“Elaine, I don’t care!” I told her.
“I heard him tell someone to ‘Get the firebird and make sure she didn’t bond.’”
I gasped, sitting back in my seat as her words sank into me. “You think he knew I would rebirth?” I asked her after a long time in silence.
We were on the highway now, trees passing by as we made our way north.
“I do. He had old books with knowledge in them of the Talanagi, and when he heard you bonded a firebird, I think he knew rebirth was possible.”
No.
“Do you think he was behind Liana’s kidnapping, to keep us from bonding and becoming too powerful?” I asked her, my heart racing in my chest. Why hadn’t she told me any of this before!?
She pursed her lips. “I do. But I don’t think he would ever kill you, Aisling.”
Holy crap.
My breath came out in short bursts as Elaine squirmed next to me on the seat.
“You should have told me sooner,” I said.
“I didn’t think it mattered. Once you were bonded and off to boot camp, it wouldn’t matter.”
But itdidmatter.
“Elaine, the men holding Liana that night had Marble Shore accents. But then, when we got attacked at the train during our boot camp final, Luskins showed up, and Liana remembered their smell.”
Elaine frowned. “What does that mean?”
No… no. This couldn’t be true.
“It means if my father was behind Liana’s kidnapping to keep us from bonding… then he somehow hired Luskins.”
She frowned. “No. That’s not possible. He hated Luska.”
I nodded, and then everything got really quiet. For the first time since hearing Kohen’s wild lies about my father, I became really afraid. Terrified that he might actually be telling the truth.
I was no longer tired; I was wide awake and going through every conversation I’d ever had with my father, every glare he’d ever given me, every correction to my behavior.
“Elaine?” She was leaning against the window, and I wasn’t sure if she was asleep or not, but when she turned to face me, I saw that she was near tears.
Did she feel guilty for not telling me that sooner? Was she also replaying everything my father ever did or said to me to see if he was capable of murdering me?
“When you had the movers clean out my father’s office, did you keep his things?”
She nodded. “In a secure storage unit, under guard. He had high-profile paperwork.”
“Have everything brought to my office at the house. I want to go over it all.”
