Page 20 of Aberrant Monsters
I droppedNandi a text to check where she was before I jumped on the train home.
Still with client. Archie fancies Chinese for his first night at the castle.
I couldn’t help but smile, because if Archie could live off Chinese food, he totally would.
I’ll order it for ten.
Luv ya, see you soon xxx
It was almost nine when I got home. My uncle was sitting at the kitchen table nursing a cup of tea when I entered. His hair looked mussed, as if he’d been running his fingers through it, and when he looked up at me, his eyes were red-rimmed with disappointment.
Crap. He knew I’d broken into his study.
No, that was fine. It was okay, because we needed to talk about it anyway.
“Why did you do it, August?” he asked. “What were you looking for that you couldn’t have just asked me about?”
He wanted to play the wounded party after the lies he’d told? Fine. Let him. “I wanted to find a cure for my predicament. I went to see Elina Moore.” I lifted my chin, defiant and confident in my righteous indignation.
His mouth parted in shock. “What?”
“Yeah.” I pulled out a seat and parked my ass. “She told me some stuff. You know, stuff like the fact that my mother was a rift walker. And not justanyrift walker, one of the most powerful ones out there—”
“August, I—”
“Shetold me that the Order signed a blood contract to leave me alone. So why, I wonder, have you never told me that? Why have you pretended to be protecting me all this time, when there’s a contract in place for that. Why didn’t you tell me my mother was a rift walker? Hmm? Why make me feel like I had to hide?”
“What did you tell her? August, what did you tell Elina? Did you tell her about Telarion?”
“Yes, I told her. She can’t help, though. But maybe the Order can. And unless you can give me a valid reason why we can’t just—"
“Stop!” His chest rose and fell real fast. “Oh, God, August, you have to leave. You have to get out of the city right now.” He shoved his chair back.
His panic was infectious. “What are you talking about?”
“You don’t understand what you’ve done. Elina is an ambitious, greedy bitch who’ll do whatever it takes to get back into the Order’s good graces.”
“I don’t understand.”
“She’ll tell them about Telarion. I know she will, and they’ll come for you—they could be on their way right now.”
“So what if she tells them? The contract—”
“Is null and void if you break the rift walker rules, which you have.” He raked a hand through his hair before crossing the kitchen and yanking open a drawer. He pulled out the plastic cutlery holder and fiddled with the back of the drawer before removing an envelope.
He shoved it at me. “Take this. Keys and address to a safe house. Go now. I’ll find you when the dust clears and—” A hammering on the door cut him off and his shoulders fell in defeat even as his eyes lit up with the fire of determination. “They’re here!”
I would have asked how he knew it was them, but in all these years we’d never had an uninvited visitor.
“Go!” He shoved me toward the back door.
The hammering came again.
I stood my ground. “I’m not leaving you.”
He grabbed my shoulders, his eyes wild with alarm. “If you stay, they’ll kill you. You have to go. Please go, sweetheart. I can’t lose you too.”
His dread finally penetrated my shock. I stumbled for the back door, yanking it open and bursting into the tiny entranceway. Then I flipped open the lock on the main exit and fell into the night, smack bang into a solid chest.
