Page 10 of A Lesson in Obedience
“After your grandma passed, I was focused on getting an apartment and selling their house. I didn’t plan on meeting Thomas, and I never meant to tell him…everything. I never expected him to love you as much as he did. I was prepared for it to just be you and me forever.
You just accepted him as your dad and we got married, you grew up carefree and loved. One day about six months before your twelfth birthday you got really frustrated during one of our typical mother-daughter fights and stormed out of the room. I noticed that a few of the items in the kitchen including the knives on the knife block had risen. You stomped up the stairs, slammed your door and then everything fell.”
My mouth dropped open in surprise.
“Up until this point you were just?—”
“—normal?” I didn’t know why I said it with such venom.
“No, Riley. Human. But then again, I guess you never really were.”
I touched the empty space at my chest where my necklace used to hang.
“Thomas had just started at Mystic Riegan a year or so before and he tried to reassure me that he could find someone who could help us. I was scared that if you let your powers out, then maybe Erik would take notice. I’d been told by your grandma and many others that he had disappeared for some time and no one had heard from him, but I was scared, Riley. We were all living comfortably and we were happy. I needed a way to subdue your powers, not get rid of them, but just I don’t know…”
“I get it, okay.” I quickly cut her off.
“If we had known Erik was the chancellor, your father would have never taken a job there. I assumed because of your necklace, you would be perceived as a human. There was no chance of Celica coven recruiting you. Erik’s mother never really approved of me and she oversaw the coven in great detail. I assumed Erik would never take the reins from his mother, despite lineage and legacy, they couldn’t stand each other. I thought he would have just moved on.”
“Youassumed. Youthought.” I repeated, pushing off the couch and nearly tripping over Beau. He had fallen back asleep and was now on high alert. “You assumed wrong!” I stomped my foot on the ground and my mug went flying across the table, shattering when it hit the ground. “He killed dad because of your fucking assumptions!”
Her eyes went wide. “What?”
“Yes, Mom. He had a nice little chat with dad and yourunwanted truth came out. He didn’t like that you moved on, that you let someone else take his place, so he punished him for it. He pushed him out a fucking window and that school that he has wrapped around his finger just pretended like it was an accident.” My vision started to get a little blurry from the tears that I was keeping at bay. It physically hurt to not let them fall. “He tortured people to find me. He manipulated people I cared about. He—” I choked on my last words. I saw the picture frames from the mantle rise and fly through the air, hitting the wall. The coffee table rattled and started to lift from the ground.
“Riley…” She reached her arm out, holding up her hand as if that would calm me down. “I’m sorry, honey. Is that where you went after that meeting? Did he take you somewhere? Is that where the blood came from?”
I blinked, seeing Beau lift up so that he was standing on his back legs and pawing at me. I tried to get the coffee table to settle down, but the rattling got worse and it started to slam against the floor. The vases my mom had put on corner tables in the room flew past her head. My heart hammered in my chest and I wanted to stop.
Hedidn’t take me anywhere.
“Grayson.” His name came out like a plea. It was a plea that didn’t matter anymore. A plea no one would hear. “The b-blood. Her b-blood.”
“Whose blood? Riley, you have to talk to me, honey.” Her words were trying to sound relaxed, but there was a shift in her tone. She was scared for me. I felt Beau’s weight again and I teetered back a little.
“Mom—,” I started, causing her to get up off the couch and head over to me. I put my hand out willing her to stop. I heard a guttural noise, looking past my hand and seeing my mom open and closing her mouth as she gasped for air. I could see the way her throat was cinched by whatever I was doing. My name was broken and raspy coming from her lips as she tried to breathe.
Beau barked repeatedly and then I felt the full force of his bodyagainst mine as he shoved me with his paws against the wall. I heard my mom coughing and rapidly taking in air. She had tears in her eyes. Beau started whining, his ears falling back against his head. I flicked my eyes to my mom and shook my head when she tried to come towards me again.
I ripped the t-shirt off my head, letting my slightly damp braids hit my back. “I-I’m sorry.”
“Riley, stop!” My mom yelled at my back when I turned around making a beeline for the front door. I didn’t stop to think about where I was going. I just couldn’t be here.
I threw the door open with a shaky hand and ran. I heard the heavy pants of Beau following me, but I didn’t look back.
4
Asher
My hands hurt from how tight I gripped my steering wheel while I followed River to Grayson’s house. When he texted me the address, I’d let out the most obnoxiously loud groan in my car. When River and Grayson met, my brother had just moved into my apartment with me when I was still living in Berkeley. I’d wanted him to finish high school at the same school, so I waited until his senior year to start house hunting somewhere far away from our parents.
Grayson was living in Blyth, a city close by, and they’d somehow struck up a conversation at a fucking football game. Next thing I knew, Grayson was hanging out at our apartment more and more, but I noticed a shift in my brother’s demeanor and a difference in the way he carried himself that thankfully caused me to have to worry about him less than I already did. River had always been a confident guy, but I guess I always silently thanked Grayson for making sure my brother knew he could be that way all the time and not just for show.
I hadn’t been keeping up with my brother’s friends or I would have realized that between the spark of their friendship and now, Grayson—or at least his parents—had moved to fucking Santa Rosa. It was nearly two hours away from San Jose, but River rode that death trap of a motorcycle like a bat out of Hell, so he could cut that down easily. I tried to tell myself to stay calm and remember that speed limits were important, but I found myself not caring. I would pay off any ticket I got.
I rode in silence, not interested in any sort of distraction the radio could provide me. Once the GPS got down to one minute I started to pay more attention to the houses around me. It wasn’t a fancy neighborhood, but it was hard to tell anything this late at night. I parked behind my brother, in front of what I assumed was Grayson’s driveway.
Lights turned on near the front of the house, likely motion detectors for security reasons. They gave me a better view of the exterior, which had a Spanish style to it. The lights let me see the red terracotta roof and the arched windows. There was a small patio that was lined with succulents that appeared to be thriving.
