Page 76 of Bitten, Marked, Obsessed

I pause. Let it sit.

“You don’t get to have both.”

I walk out before the silence swallows me whole.

And behind me, I swear I hear him whisper, almost too quiet to catch?—

“Neither did she.”

I walk out before I say something I can’t take back.

Because I believe him. And Idon’t.

Adora’s a fuse already lit. And if anyone finds out what she really is—who she really comes from, or even if she finds out what’s been held from her?

She won’t be the only one that burns.

31

KENDALL

Ifind her at the end of the farmer’s market on 12th—like she’s trying to blend in with baskets of herbs and locally-sourced bullshit.

Margreet. My mother.

She’s got a scarf wrapped tight around her neck and her sunglasses tucked low like they’re some kind of shield. Like I can’t see her through it. Like I haven’t memorized every damn twitch in her face after years.

But today she’s not getting away. She can’t escape like she has been trying to since the attacks.

I cut across a vendor table full of crystals and sage bundles and step right into her path before she can slip into the crowd again.

“Don’t even think about it,” I say.

Her body goes stiff. Slow turn. Eyes wide, but her mouth’s already pressing into that practiced line of false calm.

“Kendall,” she says. “I?—”

“Save it,” I snap. “You owe me more than a greeting and a guilted half-smile.”

She glances around, lowering her voice. “This isn’t the place?—”

“No,” I say. “This is exactly the place. Because if we don’t talk here, you’ll just disappear again.”

She swallows hard. “We could always go home?”

I laugh. “Yeah, ‘cuz that worked so well last time.”

“Fine.”

We walk two blocks in silence, the distance between us feeling heavier than it should. She leads me into a quiet alley behind a closed flower shop, and I lean back against the brick wall, arms crossed, heart pounding.

“I’m not leaving,” I say. “So just… tell me the truth. All of it. Adora and Dad have told me what they could. Now I need to know the rest. Unless you want your daughters to die for lack of knowledge.”

She pulls the scarf from her throat like it’s choking her and rubs her temple.

“I never wanted it to be like this.”

“Like what?” I demand. “That you’d lie to us our entire lives? That we’d both wake up with monsters in our blood and no clue who orwhatwe are?”

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