Page 37 of Wreck and Ruin

Kill her, and get my fucking girl back before they hurt her.

Or worse.

I make a conscious effort to calm down, slumping against the cold stone behind me, giving Ursa the illusion that I am tired and have given up.

They’ll need to kill me before I ever give up on Airlie.

“Valerie’swhore,” she states, the word ‘whore’rolling off her tongue as if it’s supposed to be some kind of an insult. She will have to do better than that if she wants to get under my skin. Nothing she can do or say will affect me.

I take a leaf out of my girl’s book, choosing to say nothing because the truth is, silence really is more infuriating, and I need to rile Ursa up if I have a chance of getting out of here.

It sounds counter-intuitive, I know, but people make horrible decisions when they’re emotional, something even I am guilty of, despite knowing better. Still, Ursa flying off the handle is what I am counting on.

I was right to think they’d know who I was if they ever laid eyes on me. They all drink the same water in these parts, connected to each other like magnets, and it wouldn’t surprise me if they're rounding up whatever's left of their soulless society to continue their dirty dealings elsewhere.

“You have nothing to say to me?” Ursa spits, and I look up, narrowing my gaze at her. She looks furious. I don’t know what I did to piss her off, but her eyes have invisible fires dancing in them.

“Look at me!” she shouts, her face turning various shades of red, and it’s all I can do not to smirk.

“What do you want me to say?” I question, which apparently wasn’t the response she wanted because she reaches for her belt, lifts the leather flap on the holster, and pulls out her pocket knife.

Good.

That will make retrieving it a whole lot easier when the timing is right.

“You’ve taken everything from me!” My brows furrow, and I don’t bother hiding my confusion. She paces back and forth, mumbling insanities to herself, still too far away for me to get to her.

I bend over, reaching for my pants, and Ursa’s eyes flick to mine. She gives a slight nod, and I slip them on as she continues pacing.

“I don’t know who you’re talking about–”

“Bullshit! Valerie always said you were her favorite, but I don’t see it,” she points the blade at me, and that’s when I realize.

Where Valerie was tall, slender, and held onto her dwindling youth like her life depended on it, which it sort of did, Ursa is shorter and appears much more youthful, naturally so.

“How could you!”Tears start streaming down her face, and I can see all traces of commonsense fade from her dark eyes as she gives into her grief.

I need to move this along.

“Look. I don’t know who Valerie was to you, but she didn’t give a single shit about anyone but herself. She obviously didn’t think too highly of you because I am learning about you for the first time right now, and she told me almost everything,” the last part is a lie. Hence the four years I spent pretending my ass off.

“She was my mother!”Ursa cries. I didn’t know Valerie had a daughter. And why the hell would anyone want their daughter caught up in this mess?

“I didn’t know,” is all I offer her as I continue wearing a mask of indifference.

“You didn’t know,”she says, dragging out each word derisively.

“No offense, but I stand by my previous statement. Valerie didn't care about anybody. And the fact that she allowed her own daughter to step foot on an island riddled with fucking criminals, much like herself, pretty much proves that.”

“You don’t know fucking anything about me!” she yells, taking a step closer.

Almost there.

“You're right. I don’t know anything about you. Because she never mentioned you. Not once,” I inform her casually. Her eyes fill with more tears, and she lets them fall, carving streaks of pain and sorrow down her face, ruining her make-up.

It’s just like Valerie to abandon her daughter in a place like this. She didn’t have a maternal bone in her high-maintenance body.

A knot forms deep inside my chest as thoughts of what Ursa must have endured here on Atlantara come to mind. And the woman responsible for all of it was supposed to be the one person Ursa was the safest with in this world.

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