Piper

When I stepped out of my family’s black chariot, a sleek car with bulky trapezoid windows, a few hours later, a train station’s towering archway greeted me.

The cobblestone staircase and shadow-covered inner tunnel were intimidating. While my gut pushed me to continue investigating our mysterious destination, I couldn’t help but bunch the fabric of my cardigan between my fingers. Nervous sparks of energy flowed through me. I hid them in my sweater and spun in a circle to take in our surroundings.

My eyebrows pulled together. I glanced into the backseat and found Silas’s bewildered yellow eyes staring back. He sat on the footboards, shoved into the kennel Mom instructed Daniella to lock him in.

I could have told you ten minutes into the drive we weren’t going to meet with the council, he grumbled.

He didn’t need to see my face to know I was rolling my eyes. I frantically bounced around and hugged my stomach.

“Where are we?” I whispered to my boy.

Instead of answering, Silas shrank back inside the kennel and chattered his teeth. It did nothing to settle the swirling in my stomach. A registering dull ache that tugged me a few steps away from the vehicle, toward the station.

“Mom . . .” I swallowed. “Where are we taking a train?”

My fingers reached for the side of our vehicle to steady myself. A hundred different questions, and their equally panic-surging answers, invaded my head. One after another stabbed through the naïve little bubble, I kept myself in, until it burst with a loud pop.

“I’m sorry, darling.” She exhaled.

No one fucking listens to me.

I didn’t have the energy to comment on Silas’s sass. He had a better understanding of human interaction than me. And he was the animal!

My shoulders pinched. I inched my eyes around to face her. Those brown eyes I loved had lost all their light.

Her head hung, tearing her eyes from mine, and a hand rested on the swell of her breasts.

I held onto what patience I had left as she toyed with the flare of her lilac dress, brushing down the dark purple accents that matched the flowers in my hair.

When she finally mustered up the courage to meet my eyes, she was struggling to get her words out. She flickered her gaze back and forth. As if reading off a page, she moved through her mentally written speech.

Please, no. I held my breath and waited for anything. A smile. A sparkle that didn’t glisten like she was seconds from crying. A deep exhale to tell me everything was fine. Don’t say it. Don’t say it.

“Mom?” My heart pounded in my ears. “Are you alright?”

Everest, our family’s driver, unloaded three suitcases. His eyes avoided making any eye contact with me. An odd behavior for a man that watched over me all my life. I’d never experienced the cold shoulder from him. He was a kindhearted man that treated me as a daughter when my father couldn’t. His rejection hurt almost as much as seeing a tear roll down my mother’s face.

A soft breeze tickled my face, somehow stealing what air was left in my lungs.

“Mom.” I licked my lips. “What is⁠—”

“I should have told you sooner.” She extended the handle on the tallest suitcase. “Please understand that . . . I didn’t tell you because I was worried about what might happen, Pipes. Everything is fragile with the breach in our security. You heard the rumor of a vampire lurking.”

Excuses. Don’t listen to her excuses.

I tried to tell myself that her rambling hadn’t meant what I thought it meant, but it was impossible to stop that impending train crash. It sped up on my mental train tracks as my jaw trembled, teeth chattering loudly with nerves.

I couldn’t hear anything but questions and evil intrusive answers that only sprouted more questions. I was running down the hallway in my nightmares. Running from the unstoppable train of mayhem. My greatest fears, fears I didn’t even know I had, filled every door I tried. There was no escaping the impact.

Why did we have to have suspense? I’d rather her rip off the Band-Aid. I hated not knowing what would happen next. Waiting and waiting. That was what my anxiety consumed me with. The suspense for an unknown outcome.

Waiting for the toast to pop out of the toaster. Waiting for the loud blaring alarm. Waiting for the rubber band to snap. Waiting for that⁠—

“You never would have gotten in the car if I told you the truth.”

“The—” I recoiled, a cold sweat prickling my skin as every awful scenario crashed into me. “The truth?”

I didn’t want to face the truth. Why the hell did I even ask? It was not like the truth was going to make my head stop spinning. If anything, it would make it all a billion times worse.

I had to say something. My mind was racing for an explanation and completely ignoring the basics I knew about sentence structure. Bright colors flashed behind my eyelids as I carefully pressed the heels of my hands into my eyes and turned around. I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t ready to accept we were here. Not yet. Not yet!

Feeling desperate, I ripped my hands away from my face.

“I didn’t kill him!” I squeaked out.

I clutched the fabric of my sweater again when Mom sucked in a sharp breath.

“I-I mean, I did, but not purposefully,” I weakly whispered. Numerous emotions fought to worm their way inside me, while the ugly, wicked anger below fought to escape. “I never meant to hurt him. We were—I cared for Beau. Deeply, Mom. I rest my words over the blooms.”

She tilted her head back at my sworn pledge. Her long lashes fluttered, a frenzied attempt to keep her emotions in tacked.

My mother was such a beautiful woman. I took a moment to admire the way her light brown hair fluttered on her shoulders as a soft breeze toyed with the petals in her hair. She had also had her hair done with flower-woven curls and small braids. The only difference between us finally caught my attention. While she dressed me in my coordination braids, saved for accepting leadership, she had darker flowers.

I squinted at her choice and quietly gasped in realization. She was mourning me. I wasn’t even gone, and she was mourning me.

“Wh-Where’s Dad?” I fumbled to speak, to say anything. “Where are we? Where are we going? What’s going on? What about⁠—”

Piper. I turned to the car and watched Silas lower his head. Remember to breathe. Those questions will not help you feel any better.

“But I—” I turned back to my mother. “Mom, say something!”

She slowly pushed the suitcase in her hands to rest beside me. Then a second, slightly smaller, suitcase.

“You have never been short of incredible, Piper.” She exhaled and let her arms fall to her sides. “And your father believes that, too. I know he does.”

“But?” I gulped so hard my ears popped.

“Flower,”—Her fingers brushed under her eyes—“we have to think about how Beau’s death will affect our coven. It has been tense for a while, darling, and this will—this might not go our way.”

When my eyes widened with betrayal, she tripped a step closer.

“And we have to think about you!” she added. “That’s why we left before sunrise. That’s why your father isn’t here.”

“I don’t un . . . un . . . understand. You’re choosing th-the coven over me?” I fanned my face as if I was battling a flame. I wheezed, emptying my lungs until they burned. “I-I . . . But . . .”

What have you done? What have you done?

Mom stepped forward like she wanted to touch me, then stepped back as I struggled to settle my panic.

You’re not there. Stay in the present. Silas’s voice rushed in to try and clear the memories of Beaumont coughing up blood on repeat in my head. Piper, you’re not alone. You’re not there.

“We have to consider what’s best for you with your studies. It’s come to our attention that—” She closed her eyes. “Killian has asked you to step down from your program. Now that the boy has passed. . . His death has . . . Piper, my sweet . . .”

“Of course. They’ll use any excuse to shove me out!” I stepped away from her and let out a frustrated whine. “I did nothing wrong! I didn’t even⁠—”

Mom’s soft eyes met mine as I spun back to face her.

“I couldn’t even bring him back.” The words choked out of me with such disdain, it brought a blurry red mist across my vision. “I couldn’t bring him back.”

Heat flooded my body. I practically dropped to my knees when I notice the violent earthquake that took over my hands. I wobbled out a few noises, glancing from the daunting bolts to my overly cautious mother. My eyes squeezed shut as Beaumont’s highlight reel of hell bashed through my weakened brick walls.

The heat wasn’t the worst part. I could handle the inferno inside. A few monster cramps here and there. Sometimes I’d be overwhelmed to the point all I could do was sleep off my migraine. It was the anger that scared me. The never-ending pummel against my head that encouraged the worst out of me.

“I couldn’t bring him back!” I tangled my hands in my hair, regretting it immediately when I met the resistance of my braids. Thorns prickled underneath where they creeped through my scalp.

The silence between us echoed in my ears. Mom couldn’t comfort me in this moment. She learned early in my life that touching me, trying to console me, through these power frets, was more dangerous for her than leaving me to be upset. I always heard parents fussing about letting their child cry it out. About learned helplessness. It was a dangerous thing, but my parents had no choice. At least, they told me they had no choice when they stood as Mom was now, wide-eyed and fearful.

I’d sent her to the hospital too many times as a young child for silly fits of childish rage. I once cried my eyes out over losing a stuffed animal, only to shock one of my chaperones into retirement.

Mom waited for my tears to fall and the like crackles in my hands to quiet before she spoke.

“Darling,” she said, her voice tight with worry, “bringing that boy back would have made things much worse for us, far worse than you can imagine.”

My mouth opened and closed, chills raining down my spine.

“Whatever happened, if he died naturally, or if you made a mistake, he’s gone.”

I gulped down the knot in my throat.

“He’s gone, Flower.” She sighed.

Tears threatened my waterline.

“Piper.” Mom stepped forward and laid her hand over her heart. “I know it’s sudden, but his death is going to make your life much harder. No matter what happened. I need to protect you. Your father and I—” She gulped. “We’re worried.”

“About what happened?” I winced. “I-I never meant to⁠—”

“About the choices the council will make if you stay. We can’t hide you.” Mom’s eyes shifted to the train station. “I can’t in good conscience keep you from excelling while you still have the time.”

Without thinking, I scoffed, “I don’t have time. I’m essentially dead as it is. Just get it over with.”

I regretted the words as soon as I said them. It made my mother stop. She stiffened and the film over her shattered eyes turned into waterfalls.

I closed my eyes and dug my fingers into my temples. It was my destiny to be stupid. A dumb glitch in their precious purity. Dad always warned me not to bring up the curse in front of my mother unless she did first. It was the white-hot rage boiling deep within me that made it hard. I wanted to scream out things that would protect me, and at the same time, I wanted to curl up into Silas and beg him to take away my pain.

“Moonstream,” Mom hissed under her breath, taking a moment to collect herself as she paced a quick circle. She spun back to me so fast her light brown braid smacked her shoulder. “Do you honestly think I would ever forget I am losing you every day? Do you think I don’t know that I must choose between one final year with my only child, or keeping you safe a little longer? Do you think I don’t lie awake at night waiting for your father to break the news that you’ve left us?”

Mom struggled not to break down into sobs. Her shoulders shuddered.

“Piper, what happened last night was a line we cannot explain away. Your father and I—We’re only able to make so many heads turn. There are men that stood against your father for the last three years, and they’ll want blood.” She raised a hand to her throat and grappled for her next words. Opened and closed. Inhaled and exhaling. A frustrated scrunch to her brows. It all flashed by in seconds. “Good witches do not—We have no choice, darling. We have no choice.”

She avoided the word, but I knew what she wanted to say. I could see how badly she wanted to attach that word to me.

Good witches do not kill.

And she wouldn’t have thought that unless she believed, even in the slightest, that I had killed him. That I murdered him. That I, Piper Frost, had slain an innocent boy, Beaumont Vestley. My best friend. The only person who dared to get close to me.

“You have made a mistake,” Mom corrected herself, slapping tears off her cheeks with rushed, furious swipes. “Something went wrong last night, and you’ve made a grave mistake. One we cannot fix. Not this time.”

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