Page 89 of Where Angels Fall

“Tell me where the drive is," he murmurs, voice slick with mockery. “All that delicious information. Where is it?”

My jaw drops. This man really thinks I’d tell him anything. Do I look that weak? “What drive?” I croak out, smiling as innocently as I can with the pain radiating through my leg and chest.

He smiles at that.

The next surge of pain pulls another scream from my gritted teeth, and Kai loses it, fighting against his restraints, muscles straining, veins standing out in his neck. Two knives lay embedded in my leg, and nausea roils in my stomach at the blood seeping out.

“So loyal,” Zeke hums. “To a monster, of all things.”

“The only monster here is you,” I whisper, breath hitching.

Zeke throws his head back in laughter. “Monster?” He leans closer, his voice dropping low and poisonous. “You think killing his own father doesn’t make him one?”

My heart stutters.

“His father deserved everything he got,” I spit, thoughts about my own father spinning in my head.

“Oh?” Zeke raises a brow, his dark eyes flicking between mine. “What about his mother? What about Rose? Did she deserve to die?”

What? Rose?

Amusement blooms across his face at my reaction. My head spins as I try to recall anything Ash has said about his mother, but nothing sticks in my mind.

Zeke’s eyes glitter. “Oh. He didn’t tell you about Rose?” he says softly. “His mother.”

The world tilts, and I can’t be sure I’m hearing him properly, blood rushing through my ears.

Zeke’s face morphs into one of despair; I can see it in the way his eyes glaze over, haunted and lost. “She couldn’t live with what her own son did. Couldn’t live with the monster she gave birth to. So she followed her husband. Killed herself to be with him.”

The feeling in the room is like a vacuum, his words spinning in the small space. They don’t make sense at first. My stomach drops, thinking about the man I love, as a kid.

Little Ash. Defending himself. Defending her. A boy who thought he was a monster because the only person who should have loved him unconditionally, decided he was one.

My chest caves in around the thought.

Because I made him feel like one too.

Zeke blurs in my vision, as tears of devastation glaze my eyes.

There’s grief in his eyes.

And rage.

“You loved her,” I breathe.

I don’t know how I know. I just do. Maybe because my face looks the same, thinking about Ash and how I’ve lost him.

His hand snaps out, pain exploding across my face. My head jerks sideways, blood filling my mouth.

“Tell me where the drive is,” he snarls.

But I can’t stop thinking about Ash. The look on his face from the last time I’ll ever see him.

“You’re not angry he killed his father,” I whisper hoarsely, tasting iron. “You’re angry because you lost her.”

The silence that follows is deadly. Then fury explodes across his face.

His hand wraps around the knife stuck in my thigh, moving it slightly so that the pain rears its ugly head. My mouth parts on a silent scream, eyes finding Kai again.