Page 57 of The October Trials

“After everything I did for you?” Her tone turns sweet, but I know it’s only a manipulation tactic. The way poisoned fruit is sweet right before it kills you. “I gave up my life for this family. I let them cut me open on that altar so you could rise. And now you’d throw me away for some… little girl?! She means nothing. I am your blood. I am the only one who has ever truly loved you in your entire life.”

The words dig in exactly where they always have, that spot in my chest that can only be filled by her.

I can’t betray my mother.

So, I raise the gun.

Blair’s eyes go wide. She squeezes them shut, her whole body tensing, waiting for the shot.

My finger hovers over the trigger.

It hovers.

And hovers…

One little twitch and it’d all be over.

But something stops me.

Fuck, I am too far gone for this girl. I don’t know when it happened. But when I picture myself ruling over the Legion, I don’t see my mother standing beside me anymore. I see her.

My body aches for it to be her.

I am truly and utterly fucked.

My mother’s voice keeps going, keeps carving at the same old wound, but it sounds distant now.

I lower the gun.

“No,” I relent. “She stays alive.”

My mother screams.

The sound is inhuman. A shriek of rage that rattles the windows in their frames, snuffs every candle at once, plunging half the room into shadow. Everyone in the room clasps their hands over their ears.

“You fool!” she gawks. “You weak, pathetic—”

“Enough,” I snap.

“She’s ruined you! That little bitch has—”

“I said enough!”

My mother’s form flickers in and out, her rage eating through whatever’s been holding her to this realm. “Oh, you’ll regret this, boy. You’ll regret this for the rest of your miserable life.”

The shrieking keeps building, wall to wall, drowning out everything else.

Which is exactly why I don’t notice Dimitri. I don’t notice him kicking something across the floor. Not until Blair’s eyes snap open. Not until she looks down.

The explosives.

The extra ones in the briefcase that weren’t used. The stronger ones. Sitting at her feet.

“No,” I rasp. Shit.

Shit, shit, shit.

She grabs them, her hands working fast, pulling the wires, twisting them together.