Page 67 of Son of a Witch

At any moment I expected them to open their mouths and sing their stony song to summon the warden and riot sentries.

“My son is a convicted criminal.” Mom snorted into her tissue. “He bought my house with blood money.”

Every shadow in the stone hall crowded around me, welcoming me into their dark embrace, urging me to the dark side. Like Eronius in Captain Victorius when the death of his parents sent him into a dark spiral from which he never emerged. Darkness initiated me into its fold. I was the monster I dreaded. The antihero. The bad guy I fought valiantly against for so long. Nothing good resided in my soul. Just pure wickedness, corruption, and deception.

Fuck, fuck, fuckity fuck. This was not the way the conversation was meant to go. The warden and I rehearsed my lines, how I would direct the discussion, slide around certain topics. As usual, I fucked this up. I couldn’t do a thing right. My eyes burned with unshed tears. Hot, bitter fire shot up my back.

“How’s the new place?” I went off script and redirected the dialogue because I didn’t trust myself with the tough questions.

“Really good,” Janet spoke for Mom, who was too distraught and sobbing. “It’s easily laid out for Mom to get around. Please thank Astra for having the handrails she installed.”

I nodded. Stiff. Sharp. “I will.” I traced the scratches on the prison table. Lines carved into my soul. “Do you need any money?”

Janet furiously shook her head. “No. We’re good, baby brother.”

A lie if I ever heard one. She didn’t want myblood moneyeither.

My nail scratched its own line in the paint on the steel. Money I earned from the sale of contraband wasn’t godamn earned from the death of any creature. The fairy wings were found on the forest floor, shed by a gantii when it grew into a bigger pair. The dragon’s tooth fell out. I didn’t trade off the back of hunted creatures like the bastards who hunted wild animals. Didn’t trade in drugs or weapons or any of that dark shit.

Fuck. This was going downhill and fast.

I tried to keep it on track. “How are Molly and Jack doing at school?”

“Great.” Janet smiled. “They’re getting top grades, have a good network of friends, and excellent, caring teachers.”

Pleased, I nodded, quickly running out of topics when their line of questioning died. “How’s work?”

“I picked up an extra couple of shifts.”

“That’s great, sis.”

She nodded and glanced around. None of us knew what to say. This was awkward as fuck, and I wanted to end it and roll back to my cell with my head down.

“I’m gonna…” I started, wheeling my chair backward. “Go outside and play with the kids.”

“Okay.” Janet’s voice sounded small and lost.

Mom sniffled into her tissue. I felt awful that they came all this way for barely five minutes with me. I couldn’t bear the disappointment in her eyes or the sting of her accusations. In her mind, I was forever stamped a criminal. Fissures in my heart widened, breaking into two chunks with a resounding crack.

I sat on the sidelines of the workout jungle gym that Astra and my niece and nephew played on. Not even the image of Molly negotiating the monkey swing like a damn pro brought me laughter. Everything replayed in my head like a scratching fucking record that I wanted to rip off the base and snap. Darkness replaced all the light in my heart.

Threats from the prisoners trailing my family wrapped around me like the dark hand of the devil himself. Mom, Janet, Molly, and Jack were innocent in all of this. Why someone wanted to terrorize them was beyond me.

The grip on my neck, the pressure from wanting out of this place, for this nightmare to end, squeezed so hard it ached.

My pulse spiked as an answer came to me. Devon and Edwardo wanted blood. Revenge for Raze tearing off Devon’s nuts. Vengeance for Knoxe getting them locked up in maximum security for four months. They took a hit out on us in prison and failed to nail us. Now they went after the next best thing—our loved ones. Fury whipped through me, lashing me like a windstorm.

Urgency thrummed in my veins to find these fuckers, arrest them or kill them before they got to the only shining lights left in my pathetic life. To do that, I had to get out of my goddamn chair and back on missions to hunt them down and kill them. Fuck arresting them. They were dead for intimidating my family.

After the hour with my family, Supergal and I went straight to Knoxe, interrupting him from a conversation with Selena about investigating some snitch sources we had on the outside to track down the escapees.

“Knoxe, got a minute? It’s important.” My hands and fingers ached from gripping the armrest so hard.

He tried to wave me away. “In a second.”

Astra’s hand massaged the back of my stiff neck to relieve the pressure. I needed out of this damn chair to attend physiotherapy and stretch. The warden kept me in it all day to practice his stupid script.

“No,now.” I wasn’t waiting. This was life or death. “Sorry, Selena.”

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