Page 66 of Kill the Beast
“He’ll live,” Lyssa said, snatching up the jar of dirt, angry with herself for caring what some buffoon in lace thought of her. “It’s more than he deserves.”
“Blessed Lady,” her father panted, his face pale in the glow of the gas lamps. He looked up at her, his expression a mixture of disgust and horror. “What would your mother think of—”
“Don’t you dare try to use her memory against me,” Lyssa snarled at him. “She would have hated you for what you did to us.”
He didn’t seem to hear her. “If you’re in some sort of trouble, you should have just come to me, instead of… of resorting tothis.”
The words left her spluttering and speechless for a moment. And then the red-hot rage returned, devouring whatever guilt and regret she had felt a few moments ago. She closed the distance between them until she was looming over him—it was satisfying, the way he shrank from her, his eyes wide with fear.
“I should have come toyou?” she said, resisting the urge to grind the toe of her boot into the gaping wound in his thigh. To break him the way he had broken her, and leave him draped over Eddie’s grave like an offering. If Alderic hadn’t been here, she might have. “The man who abandoned his children when they needed him the most? The man who fled the country to get away from his debts, leaving his son and daughter to fend for themselves? That man?That’sthe one I should have gone to with my troubles?”
“Lyssa,” her father said. His voice and face had both gone softwith sorrow. “I didn’t know what else to do. I thought it would be better for you both if I—”
“I don’t have time for this horseshit.”
“Lyssa, please,” her father begged, trying to stand and sinking back onto the grass with a yelp of pain. “Please don’t leave me here.”
“It doesn’t feel good to be forsaken by your own flesh and blood, does it? But don’t worry. The groundskeeper will find you soon enough,” she told him. “Youwon’t be stuck out here in the cold, like we were.”
“I’ll tell him who stabbed me,” her father warned. “I’ll tell him what you were up to when I found you. You know what they do to body snatchers. You won’t be able to show your face in Warham without—”
“Threaten me again and I’ll put a bullet in your brain,” she spat, which finally shut him up. “Come on,” she barked at Alderic, and stormed away across the grass toward the wall at the back of the park where it was easiest to draw a Door.
“You stabbed him,” Alderic said again, looking back over his shoulder. The headstones and monuments obscured their view of Lyssa’s father, but she heard him call her name a few more times.
“Yes, we’ve established that,” she snapped as she shoved the jar of dirt and the trowel into her pack. She got out her chalk and slashed three lines across the wall, scribbled a furious circle for the knob.
When she knocked, the glow of the chalk lines limned Alderic’s face in magic light. He looked queasy, his eyes haunted, and when Lyssa grabbed his hand he flinched.
“Why—” he started, but then the Door opened, and Lyssa hauled him through.
It was pouring rain, though the Gate had spit them out in a simple stone structure with three walls and a bench, where someone might sit and gaze out at the gravestones beyond.
“Why didn’t you tell me that Edmund Cadogan was your brother?” Alderic asked the moment they emerged.
Lyssa wrenched her hand out of his and barked, “Don’t say his name like you knew it before reading it on that headstone.”
“I do know it,” Alderic insisted, and for some reason, he seemed distraught. “Ipaidfor that headstone—I paid forallof those headstones, like I’ve done for every one of the Beast’s victims. And I paid for your brother’s burial, too, since there was no one else to do it.”
“Fuck you,” she growled, staggering back a step, the words like an arrow in her heart.
Alderic’s face softened. “Lyssa—”
“We don’t have time for this!” she shouted. “We have to get your coffin nails before the sun rises!” It was hard to tell how much time they had left, thanks to the rain. They had spent longer than they should have at Eddie’s grave, and there was no way to know how many minutes or hours had passed while they went through the Gate.
Alderic glowered at her. “Fine. But afterwards, you’re going to tell me everything.”
“The Beast killed my brother,” she said, her throat tightening around the words she had been wanting to tell him for days now. “What else is there to say?”
“I don’t know,” he snapped. “Maybe why you kept it from me this entire time?”
“Because there was no point in telling you!” she screamed at him, her hands curling into fists. “What good would it have done, Alderic? Spilling your secrets to me didn’t make you hate yourself any less, so don’t pretend like knowing mine would have made a fucking difference.” She stomped out into the rain without waiting for him to reply, swearing as she tripped over something in the dark. “Let’sgo,” she urged, when she realized that Alderic wasn’t following her. She turned to find him hunched over the bench, fumbling with his lantern. For some reason, his hands were shaking, and his matches kept going out.
“Give me a second,” he said, sounding close to tears.
She growled in frustration and stalked back to him, snatching the lantern and matchbox out of his hands. “I told you, we don’t have time to fuck around.”
“I know you’re upset about what just happened,” he said as she struck a match, “but taking it out on me isn’t going to help, and we need to be able to see where we’re going.” The wick flared to life, lighting his face eerily from below.
