Page 107 of Point of No Return

We don’t just kill to survive. We thrive from it. That empowered me once. It even inspired me. Now, it just makes me sick.

“What’s in Prevya, Moma? Our family is gone. Our house, our friends, our way of life. It’s gone. What is left for us there?”

She shakes her head, sighing heavily. “You’ve never understood. Maybe you never will.”

“Explain it to me,” I turn to her, watching every movement, every word as it weighs on her skin. “What happens after I kill them? We go back and I marry someone else who’s so blinded by money or sex to see it coming?”

Whether she sees my questions as insolence or not, I don’t know. She just shakes her head again and digs around in her purse, withdrawing a slim vile of what looks like one of those expensive bottled fragrances. Ones seen in a window shop on a vacation to an island where sunlight and sea salt are a balm on the breeze.

But I know better. Whatever concoction my mother has prepared is more likely to be sold in the back of a hob than in a pretty little shop.

I take the vial, the metal cold to the touch.

“This is bigger than you and I, Lottie.” She taps my chin, forcing me to look at her. “You will do this for your family, for yourself, yes. But you do this most of all for your people.”

She says it, and the weight of the world settles on my shoulders. I want to feel nothing. But this… Killing Skar. Killing Aleks. Just the thought strikes a chord inside me and makes everything feel cold.

Bile rises in the back of my throat. But I swallow it, pocketing the vial and looking out over the river’s reflection of the star-filled sky.

“Charlotte,” she says gently, gentler than I think I’ve ever heard her. “Look at me, child.” Her eyes are near black when I do. “There will be no place for you if you fail.”

“I will not fail,” I say, and more than anything before, I believe it when I say it. I know what waits for me should I fail. And this, I know with the utmost certainty:

I will not let myself fail. I will not break.

Her palm is like ice against my cheek, petting me. “Of course not.” It’s almost as if she’s not quite sure we’ll ever have a moment like this one again. “When the time comes, you will do what’s right.”

By my family, by my people. It’s my duty.

The breeze stirring my hair is a distant feeling. “When?”

“Days, Lottie. If we wait any longer, there will be nothing left.”

Determination and dread fill my veins but I cover it with a nod. It's not much time. “Should I meet you after?”

“No. It must be an accident. No one can see you leave. We will meet when the news breaks. The funerals, all of it.”

My throat feels tight. “I won’t contact you until it’s done.”

“That’s right.” She seems pleased.

“Just a few days then.” It’s quiet again, but I refuse to leave any more room for doubt. “I’ll see you after, Moma.”

I’m almost at the door when I hear her voice again: “If he knew the truth about you, he would never love you.”

I hate that my stomach curls at her words. I hate that I’m revolted by the idea that she knows what we’ve done. More than anything else, I hate that she’s right. Even after the past few days, he will never forgive me for my past- for the things I’ve done, or the things I will do.

Skar would never forgive me if he knew the truth. He’d hate me… and there would be nothing I can do to fix it.

“Remember,” my mother reminds me, and before I can dwell too much more, I yank the door open and leave. The door drifts shut behind me.

Chapter Forty-Eight

Charlotte

By the time I’m home, I feel so drained I’m not sure how I force myself up the front steps. Part of me wants to stroll right past the kitchen and go to bed without having to deal with dinner. But I know it would only be because I’m avoiding Skar.

“Dinner. Tonight,”he’d said. And even if he hadn’t been between my legs when he said it, I wouldn’t have objected anymore.

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