Total pages in book: 56
Estimated words: 52864 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 264(@200wpm)___ 211(@250wpm)___ 176(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 52864 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 264(@200wpm)___ 211(@250wpm)___ 176(@300wpm)
“I don’t care, Draco. I love you. Just kiss me.”
I grabbed her shoulders and gave her a shake. “Piper, your mind is not right. This is not you.”
“Draco,” a deep voice echoed from behind.
I jumped from my seat and turned. “King?” Though his outline was faint, it was definitely him.
Hell, just what I needed right now: another death match with my evil father, who refused to die.
“Do you believe me now?” he said. “Everywhere you go, everything you touch turns to shit. How much more damage must you do to see the truth? What will happen when Ten Club and the Seers get their hands on you? Now, let’s go. Hell is waiting.”
“I am not leaving—”
“Look what you have done to her.” King pointed at Piper. “Look at what you have driven your mother to do. She loves you. With everything in her, she loves you. And now she’s burning down hotels, out of her mind with guilt. Ten people are already dead from the fire, and this is just the beginning.” He held out his hand. “Come before you do more damage.”
I looked at Piper’s sweet face and then glanced down at the chaos on the street. How had everything turned so quickly?
“Because you are chaos, Draco,” said King. “The world cannot handle something so dark, so inherently unnatural. And everywhere you go, you spread your sickness of the mind. What’s happened to your mother and Piper is proof. Now imagine thousands of people like them, lost, terrified, and falling into despair. Those thousands will infect millions more.”
“No. Everything happening is Ten Club’s doing, not mine.”
“It’s both, Draco. You’re the—”
“The tipping point,” Piper mumbled, still kneeling on the ground. She wrapped her arms around herself and began rocking back and forth. “Then comes the point of no return.”
I looked back at King. “If I leave with you, how does it stop?”
“Yes. I have to stop now so they can’t use me,” Piper muttered.
I turned my head just in time to watch her jump over the railing headfirst.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
My heart stopped for several beats while my mind attempted to register what I had just witnessed. No, no, no!
I went to the railing and looked down. People were screaming and running away from a bloodied broken body on the sidewalk.
In horror, I stepped back. Had she really? Had she just fucking jumped?
I sank down in the chair. I felt my soul caving in on itself. It was not real. It couldn’t be. “I-I do not understand.” Why would Piper do that? Why would she end her life?
“You broke her,” said King.
I stared at the floor. The pain in my chest and heart were a thousand times worse than when I’d lost Zarda. I had not wanted to admit how deeply Piper’s soul was intertwined with mine. It was never the house that brought us together. It was her.
And I’d fucked her up. I’d hurt her. It did not matter that it had been unintentional. I’d done it all the same. And now she is dead. It felt like a terrible, terrible dream.
“I want you to kill me, King. I won’t fight you. I deserve whatever’s waiting in hell.”
I had done an inexcusable thing by wanting and taking something that did not belong to me. I knew it then, and I knew it the moment I took her to my bed. It did not matter if Piper gave herself willingly or if her desire had matched my own. I knew, I fucking knew she was good, and I was not. I had no business wanting her.
It was my first truly evil act.
I pressed my palms against my eyes. “Get it over with, King.”
A long moment passed. “You truly loved her, didn’t you?”
What the fuck did King care? From what I had been told, he’d slept with my mother and then crushed her heart. Even when she had been pregnant with me, the only kindness he showed was in the interest of protecting his possession: me.
And then I had been born.
According to the Ten Club leader, Lori, the moment King saw me, he knew what I was. He probably would have killed me if Ansin hadn’t had a vendetta against him. Ansin slit King’s throat right there in the hospital. Afterwards, I’m told the other wheels of fate began turning, and King returned, standing at the front of the line to end my life.
He eventually chose to be reunited with his dead wife instead, who I now knew was named Mia. Apparently, he’d abandoned her again to finish the job of ending my existence.
“If killing me is more important than being with the woman you claim to love, then clearly you don’t understand the meaning.” There was no point in discussing anything with him other than, “Let’s get this over with.” I stood to face him.