Moon Child (The Year of the Wolf #2) - Serena Akeroyd Page 0,93

than death.”

The new voice snagged my attention, and though it still stunned me that I could see a mile into the distance, hear my sister shouting at me from that length, and feel as though they were just in the yard, I saw Jana and wasn’t even sure whether to laugh or cry.

Laugh, because she was alive and this should have been a reunion.

Or cry, because there she stood, half her body torn to shreds by Berry’s claws and teeth, but she had a gun trained on Lara. A gun with the safety off, and her fingers, most definitely, on the trigger.

Had Berry died? Was that why she was still alive?

The prospect of losing Berry, I realized, was far more painful than Jana’s potential loss.

Grief hit me, square in the gut. “What’s going on?” I screamed, grateful for Knight’s sling as I punched the air at my sides, fury tossing me around like I was a boat on top of a tidal wave.

“I’m taking charge of my future,” Jana screamed back, but her hands were shaking, and I knew she had to not only be in extreme pain, but she was evidently messed up to be holding a gun on our baby sister.

Our family had done a really good job of fucking us up, but this really took the goddamn cake.

“You lower that gun right this second,” I snarled, wishing I was there so I could smack her upside the head. “I can’t believe we’re having a family reunion and it’s at gunpoint.”

Jana shrieked, “Fuck you! Fuck you, Sabina. Fuck everything about you. You think you can tell me what to do? Fuck. You. You think I don’t know you want me dead? You think I don’t know that’s where this is heading?”

“Of course I don’t want you dead!” I roared at her, uncaring that my scream of rage entwined with Knight’s howl.

The kid had a set of pipes on him, but at this moment in time, it was the opposite of useful. Jana jerked, and because she was both in excruciating pain as well as nuts, the last thing I needed was the trigger-happy bitch to twitch that index finger of hers.

Humming under my breath, I muttered, “Knight, baby, please. I get that you’re stressed and Mommy is too, but now isn’t the time.”

Like he’d understood every single word, he stopped squawking. Just like that.

I’d have been amazed and told him he was a clever boy, if Jana hadn’t screamed, “I’ve been waiting for this moment since I was fourteen years old!”

There were just under four years age difference between us, so I knew whatever she’d been waiting for, whatever she’d seen, because her thing was catching glimpses of the future, it had first come to her before Kian and I had run away from home to be together.

The timing felt like my life was coming full circle, and I hollered at her, “You knew I was seeing Kian, didn’t you?”

“Of course, I did,” she snarled. “I warned father about your boyfriend.”

“You always were a snitch,” Lara spat.

I growled under my breath, because Lara was in range of the damn gun. I wasn’t. She could be shot, I couldn’t.

Quickly grabbing the attention away from Lara, I screamed, “Why did you do that? Why did you encourage him to hurt us?”

“So that this day wouldn’t come,” she snapped back. “But I knew it hadn’t worked. I knew it. I still kept seeing the same goddamn vision, and I knew even though Cyrilo believed you were dead, he’d fucked up. That was when I ran away. I had no choice.”

“Where did you run? And why did you let us think you were dead?” Lara grated out. “That was mean. And it killed Mama something fierce.”

“Boo hoo,” was all Jana had to say to that. “I had no alternative, you stupid bitch. I had to make sure that, when the time came, I had people to back me up.”

“People? What people? All I saw back there were hyena shifters who were tearing into innocents while you watched on,” I shrieked, my hands were back to being balled fists again, only punching the air wasn’t satisfying enough. I wanted to be there, wanted to beat the ever-loving crap out of her.

Growling under my breath at the distance between us, I happened to glance at Choi, and saw that he’d edged away from Lara. I knew Jana’s attention was split between us, and her focus had to be minimal, considering she looked like an