Chapter 255

Agnes

I stared at my father, my mouth hanging open. He’d just told us to destroy the facility. All of it. With everyone inside.

“No. There has to be another way,” I choked out. “We can’t just… we can’t kill innocent people.”

My father’s face remained grim. “You think I haven’t considered that? You think this is easy for me?” His voice cracked slightly. “I’ve been investigating this for years, Agnes. Years. I’ve explored every possible option. This is the only one.”

“But… the children,” I said, my throat closing up just from the thought. “There could be children down there. Children like Thea.”

“There are.” I already felt like I’d been stabbed in the chest, but the simple admission felt like the knife twisting in the wound. “But Agnes, you have to understand—either we kill a few hundred people, many of whom are already broken mentally and will be complete thralls by this time tomorrow, or we watch the world burn. And it will burn.”

I felt sick. Bile rose in my throat, and I had to swallow hard to keep from vomiting right there on the forest floor.

“We will find another way,” Elijah’s voice slipped into my mind through our bond. “There has to be another way. He’s mistaken.”

I wanted to believe him so badly. But as I looked at my father’s haunted expression, at the defeat in his eyes, I wasn’t sure there was another way. The facility was underground, heavily guarded, and my stepmother would have the stone by tomorrow. Once she had it, once she could control her army…

The images flashed through my mind. Every pack territory overrun. Children torn from their families. The strong being forced to serve, the weak discarded like trash. My stepmother sitting on a throne built from the bones of everyone who dared oppose her.

I shuddered at the very notion.

“I have to go,” my father suddenly said. “She’ll notice I’m gone if I stay much longer.”

This might be the last time I ever saw him. If we went through with his plan, if we destroyed the facility, there was a good chance my father would be in it when it happened. And if we didn’t… well, my stepmother would probably kill him anyway once she realized he’d been working against her. And she would realize it, sooner or later.

“Father,” I started, then stopped. What was I supposed to say? Thanks for the suggestion of genocide? Good luck dying?

To my complete shock, he stepped forward and pulled me into his arms.

I went rigid, my arms splayed out to the sides. The last time my father had hugged me like this, really hugged me, was… Goddess, I couldn’t even remember. Before my mother died, certainly. Before my stepmother came into our lives and changed everything.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered into my hair. “Agnes, I am so, so sorry for everything I did to you. I know it was stupid and misguided, but I was afraid and uncertain. I thought I was protecting you, but all I did was hurt you. I’m sorry, Agnes. I’m sorry.”

Hot tears pricked at the backs of my eyes. All the anger I’d carried for eight years, all the hurt and abandonment and rage—it was still there, but underneath it was something else. Something I’d buried so deep I’d almost forgotten it existed.

The little girl who had lost her mother and desperately needed her daddy to hold her and tell her everything would be okay. The little girl who had watched him marry another woman and choose that woman’s daughter over his own. The little girl who had been cast out into the world with nothing, not even her wolf to keep her company.

That little girl wanted her daddy back.

My arms moved without my permission, wrapping around him and clinging tight. I wanted to kill him and hold him forever at the same time. I wanted to scream at him for everything he’d done and beg him to stay and be my father again.

“I needed you,” I choked out. “When Mom died, I needed you more than ever, and you weren’t there.”

“I know.” His arms tightened around me. “I know, and I’ll regret it for the rest of my life. However short that might be.”

We stood there for what felt like hours but was probably only minutes, if even that. Eight years. Eight fucking years of hurt and anger and grief passed between us in that embrace. It didn’t fix anything—it couldn’t. Nothing could. Too much damage had been done, too many wounds had been left to fester. But for just a moment, I had my father back.

Then he was pulling away, clasping his hands on my upper arms as he looked at me one last time.

“Take care of Thea,” he said. “Don’t let her end up like us.”

Before I could respond, he was shifting. He gave me one last look, his yellow eyes filled with regret and something that might have been love in another life, then turned and disappeared into the trees.

I felt my knees give out the moment he was gone. But Elijah was there, his strong arms catching me before I could hit the ground.

“I’ve got you,” he murmured, pulling me against his chest. “I’ve got you.”

I buried my face in his shirt and let the tears come. For my father, for James, for the innocent people who might die because of the choice we had to make. For the little girl who had finally gotten her daddy back, only to lose him again.

…

The helicopter was waiting for us before dawn the next morning. Thea had her backpack on, and there was a smile on her face as the three of us made our way across the field behind the estate.

“Are we really going to see Richard?” she asked for the tenth time since we’d woken her up. “I saw him yesterday, but he didn’t say hi to me. I miss him.”

“Yes, sweetheart,” I managed, forcing a smile. “We’re going to see Richard, and this time, I promise he’ll say hi to you.”

It wasn’t technically a lie. We were going to Richard’s territory. We just weren’t going for a social visit.

Elijah loaded our bags—we’d chosen to pack light, only a backpack each with the absolute necessities—into the helicopter while I helped Thea climb into her seat. She was chattering away about all the things she wanted to do on our impromptu vacation, completely oblivious to the real reason for our trip. I envied her innocence.

As Elijah buckled himself in beside me, I caught his eye. Through our bond, I could still feel his absolute refusal to accept my father’s solution. But underneath that was something else—a cold, hard acceptance that we might not have a choice.

I gripped his hand tightly. I would never forgive myself for what we might have to do. But if it would save the world, if it would keep Thea safe, if it would stop my stepmother from turning everyone we loved into mindless thralls…

Maybe it was a necessary evil.

The helicopter lifted off the ground, and I watched our estate shrink beneath us as we began the journey that might end with the deaths of hundreds of innocent people. Children.

Goddess help us all.