Of Wicked Blood (The Quatrefoil Chronicles #1) - Olivia Wildenstein Page 0,109
feels like I’m looking down at her body. It feels like I’ve lost her all over again.
Papa shuts the door of the safe with a clank, and still no one says anything.
Growling his anger, Slate stops the useless compressions and sits back on his heels, hands locked in fists on his thighs. He stares at the cursed child. Just stares, and then his fingers move to her forehead, and he brushes away a lock of hair before delicately lowering her puffy lids.
The silence in the room is deafening.
“Aveline needs to be told—” Adrien starts.
Papa interrupts him. “That her daughter’s run away.”
“She’s six, Rainier. Was six.” Adrien shudders. “Six-year-olds with happy home lives don’t run away.”
“Aveline spent years doing IVF to get pregnant with Emilie. We tell her that her daughter’s dead and we’ll have more blood on our hands. Let her have hope.”
“Hope?” Slate pops out. “Hope’s a cruel thing, De Morel.”
“Hope’s better than having nothing, Rémy.”
Slate’s shoulders square. “Don’t fucking call me Rémy.”
Papa purses his lips and clutches the armrests of his wheelchair as though they were Slate’s neck. He’s going to hate finding out that Slate and I are—What are Slate and I? Besides two strangers who kissed in a restaurant. It’s much too soon for a label.
Slate finally stands, and his eyes go straight to mine. I want to reach out, but Papa’s watching, so I leave my hands hanging at my sides. Slate thrusts his fingers through his mess of curls, pushing them off the bruised lump. Icepack. He needs an icepack. And I need a reason to get out of this room and away from this innocent, dead child. I shiver when a ray of sun catches in her hair and makes it glitter gold.
“Adrien, phone your father and tell him to come over.” I meet Papa’s blue stare as he speaks. “It’s time the mayor gets more involved. We need to prepare for a town-wide lockdown to make sure no one else gets hurt.”
Slate snorts. “Hurt? You mean, lethally hexed?”
Adrien jerks away from the gray wall, his phone already in hand. “What about the girl, Rainier?”
“Cadence, ma chérie, can you grab a sheet from the linen closet?”
I nod and tail Adrien to the door when I hear Papa ask, “Now, can someone tell me who this boy is and what he’s doing in my office?”
I stop and turn back toward Slate, who has his back to Papa. “This boy’s my brother.” His fingers flex and straighten. “He’s the person I want my estate to go to in case the Bloodstone doesn’t come off, De Morel.”
“And you thought bringing him here to strongarm me into signing over your trust during the Quatrefoil hunt was a sound idea?”
“Papa!” How could my father think such a thing?
Slate smiles, but it’s not a smile at all.
I’m sorry, I mouth, ashamed.
“There’s a dead child in the room, Rainier. Maybe you can discuss this after we . . .” Gaëlle’s eyes are so red they resemble the Bloodstone. “After we bury her?”
“We can’t bury her. Not unless you want to dig around the Rolands’ backyard again.”
A nerve ticks in Slate’s jaw.
“We need to put her in the crypt or in the lake; I vote the lake.” Papa stares out the bay window at the ice-capped lake hedging our property line. “Cadence, the sheet.”
My skin pimples with dread as I back out of the office. I keep thinking it can’t get worse, but apparently it can. I think of Emilie’s mother as I take the elevator down to the laundry room, and the knot in my throat grows thick. So thick that I don’t return to the office right away. I press my forehead against the cool tiles on the wall and wade through my guilt-laced sorrow until it converts to anger, then I push the laundered sheet against my mouth and scream into it. Over and over.
I almost wish my piece would show up right now, because I’m feeling exceedingly ready to defeat it.
33
Slate
I’ve done some dark shit in my life. Breaking bones. Selling secrets. Lying. Cheating. Stealing. Backstabbing.
None of it even compares to this.
Not. Even. Close.
I killed a kid.
An innocent little kid.
And not only that, I lied to her. I told her it would be okay. I told her I wouldn’t let go of her hand. And then I fucking did.
The look in her eyes right before she died was a hammer to my heart. The look said, “But you promised, monsieur.”