Gypsy Truths (All The Pretty Monsters #6)- Kristy Cunning Page 0,11

I race by a stunned Shera.

“I didn’t know it was that important!” she calls to my back like she’s worried I’m going to kill her later.

My shoulder slams into Violet’s office door, and it breaks in half, allowing me to stumble inside.

In the next instant, I’m zapped so hard that I’m crashing back through the remnants of the door, my breath getting blown out of me.

I hit the marble floor so hard that it cracks under me and jars a grunt loose, and I blink a few times.

“What…the…hell?” Shera asks in a hushed whisper behind me.

I peer through the wrecked door at the colorful cocoon of threads that have a body encased like a mummy. But my eyes widen when I see all the electrical sparks dancing around the room…and I take in all the bent metal that has seemingly destroyed the office.

Anna is perched on the windowsill, casting us a bored look.

“Violet will be angry if she finds out you were here instead of an important meeting that could cost omegas their lives. You’d better not let anyone die after what he made her endure,” she says in a dead tone. “I’d be embarrassed if I was an ancient alpha, who had the element of surprise against a new little monster, who hasn’t fully learned to defend herself against his type, and still couldn’t win.”

I blink in more surprise when three familiar, impossible triplets show up on her left. They all smile in creepy unison.

“Didn’t she tell you we’re back?” they asks in eerie synchronization. “We followed Anna out.”

Anna shrugs a shoulder. “Couldn’t leave my friends behind.”

“What the hell is going on?” I snap, shoving up from the floor.

I feel the humming of the electricity warning me to keep my distance when I step too close.

“Dorian thought he could push her around. Turns out, he was wrong,” they answer.

Idly, I remember the times her bedroom window gave me a good shock. But it was on a much smaller scale than this offers.

“When the electricity hums in a certain pattern, it magnetizes her,” Anna adds as she hops off the desk and strolls over to the cocoon. “I’d have fetched you, but I needed to stay here and keep the metal from slicing her in half, since she was working blindly and all.”

“Why is she still cocooned if she managed to get rid of him?” I ask, desperate to go to her.

“Your brother forced his way into her mind after she fainted. I don’t know how this works. Surely you know more than I do about this sort of thing,” the ghost tells me like I’m an idiot.

If he forced his way into her mind after she shut it off, then she could be trapped in an unending state of paranoia, still fighting illusions that are no longer generated by him.

I’ll kill him if she’s even a little bit harmed from this.

“He wants to provoke you,” the triplets tell me.

“You three, stop talking. I can only handle dealing with one reborn ghost at a time during some fucked up shit like this,” I tell them, taking a deep breath.

Shera’s stammering voice cuts in next. “I-I never heard anything. This room isn’t soundproofed, and—”

“Illusions can be broader than just what the eye can see,” I interrupt, attempting to stay calm as I let my heart beat faster, working my monster close to the surface to be at the fullest power I can. “You may think you know a lot about my people, but we’re a private lot for a reason. We lack the physicality of the others, so we make up for it with another form of strength. Knowledge is power, and senses are a weakness we can extort.”

When my heartbeat is moving so fast it’s nearly a steady hum in my chest, I break through the first seal of Violet’s mind, and…stumble to a halt.

Usually, it’s dark madness. In here? It’s utter chaos and floating madness.

“What the hell?” I ask on a whispered breath, noting all the pieces of broken mirrors floating, each piece frozen with a reflection of my own face.

That son of a bitch used my image against her…

My jaw grinds, as I look around at the upside-down, dizzying swirls on every wall, blinking a few times in surprise.

How did she know Dorian and some of the others struggle with hypnotic images? I’ve never shared that information with any living soul, and neither has any member of my family.

Not even the guys know about that weakness.

Carnival music is