Page 94 of Truthfinder’s Promise

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Killing a man without use of her Aspect was nowhere in Meredith’s repertoire of life skills.

She tossed her clutch on the bed and set about searching the room for murder weapons anyway, because doing something kept the panic clawing at her throat at bay.

The room contained a four poster bed, an empty dresser, and an empty nightstand. Not even a lamp to use as a bludgeoning object. Val had tried to convince her to wear a knife in a thigh-sheath under her dress, but none of Valkyrie’s weaponry was actually designed to hide beneath an evening gown.

She’d strapped it on just long enough to show Valkyrie that, no, it wouldn’t work—to not be seen it had to be strapped to the inside of her thigh, where it knocked against the opposite thigh each time she walked, and the hilt poked her in the crotch when she sat down.

Besides which, all she knew about proper knife work was that the pointy end went into the other person. Was she capable of doing that? In the heat of the moment, if it was kill or be killed? Yes. She didn’t think she would hesitate. But offensively? She wasn’t sure. Her Aspect was a better bet for defense, and none of them could have seen a mass nullifying spell coming.

Would it have killed Analisa to give her some kind of weapon out of a sense of feminine solidarity?

We are the weapon.

Meredith snorted. Aspect was a weapon. One she didn’t have access to.

A thorough examination of the bathroom proved it didn’t have any loose bludgeoning objects either. She checked the room over again, but even the curtain rod for the draperies was bolted to the supporting hooks.

She twitched the material back, wondering if she could do something with the cloth, and realized the curtains had hidden the entrance to a balcony. She threw the doors open and stepped out. The balcony railing was low, barely to her waist. Easy enough to climb over, but if she did there was nothing on the walls to hold onto.

Even if there had been, she wasn’t delusional enough to think she could scale a wall in heels and an evening dress when she had precisely zero experience climbing. She would fall, and the best case scenario left her with some broken bits that prevented her from getting to Jensen.

Her chest tightened and her heart rate picked up, sweat slicking down her palms. Goddess, she was useless.

“Such a waste.” Her mother’s voice, the one she’d gotten good at blocking out, reared its head in her mind, dragging her back in time. “All my raw power but you came out a Truthfinder like your father. And you ruined my womb on the way out so I couldn’t even make a more useful alternative.”

The sharp pain of her mother’s Aspect gripped Meredith, spreading through her like rotating blades had sprouted in her veins, intent on carving their way out. “All you have is a pretty face and nice tits. And you’re too dumb to use them well.”

Another spasm as the invisible blades churned through her. It’s not real, it’s not real, it’s not real. The mantra that let her survive. Except the pain was real, even if the blades and the physical damage weren’t.

“What am I supposed to do with you? What good are you to me now?”

“I’m s-sorry.”

“You’re sorry?” Her mother sneered. “Three years of work on that boy and not only did you fail to convince him to crawl back to his father, you bungled it so badly he dropped you.”

One of the blades inside her grew and slowed, slicing through her midsection. She panted, trying to breathe through the pain. Then she wondered why she was trying. All she had to do was tell her mother the truth—that she’d left Jace. That she’d ruined it on purpose, been so cruel and hurt him so thoroughly he would never take her back. So that what she experienced now, the pain driving her to the brink of insanity, would never be his experience.

If she revealed that, her mother might finally spin one of those invisible blades into Meredith’s heart. What was that old quote? Something about the truth setting you free? Death was a kind of freedom, she supposed.

“You don’t even understand how good you had it. The Winters boy was so nice. So polite. So caring.” She listed the traits like they were personal defects. “I bet he was the same way when he took you to bed. Most men aren’t like that, you know? And since men are all you’re good for, I hope you remember this little lesson, and how it all could have been different if you hadn’t been so useless.”

The pain ebbed to a low, dull throbbing. A person could only handle so much pain before the mind blacked out, and Savannah Townsend was a master of making a person ride that edge. Of taking them to the limits of what they could endure and then granting them enough relief to keep them conscious.

“I’m not,” Meredith panted, “U-useless.”

The blade in her stomach whirred to life, spinning from her stomach straight into her throat. Meredith choked and coughed, her throat closing over the spiked edges.

“I could give you to Julian,” her mother mused, as if Meredith hadn’t spoken. As if her daughter wasn’t coughing out blood on the floor because sometimes when the pain was real enough, Meredith’s body overloaded. “He’s wanted you for years. It’s a weakness, this obsession of his, and I don’t like to indulge weaknesses. But I do believe in punishment, and I don’t think you would enjoy his hands on you.”

A click jolted Meredith back to the present—the room’s doorknob turned. She wiped her palms on her dress, feeling now like she had then: helpless. She heard the door close.

Think. The morning after Meredith’s mother had threatened to “give her” to Julian, she’d re-tested for her Truthfinder affinity, careful to score just well enough to be at the very bottom range of high aptitude. An hour later she had signed an agreement to contract as a Truthfinder for the Council, giving Savannah a foothold back into two things she was interested in: the Council, and Elijah Winters who was on the Council.

Meredith had thought her way out of the situation then. She could do the same thing now.

Think, damn it. Back then, Meredith had given her mother something she wanted. Meredith couldn’t—wouldn’t—give Julian what he wanted. She couldn’t run away because she would fall off this balcony to her probable death and—