Lia was shaken. Not because of what Emori had just done, as unexpected as it was, but because she was frightened for what they were about to find.
She and Cade had grown up attached at the hip. Lia had seen the effect that Drake had on the people that she loved, and unless he’d had a change of heart in the weeks that she’d been in the Dome, Cade wouldn’t be in good condition when they found him.
As they grew closer and closer to the floor that the kitchen was on, her fear only grew. She just hoped that he could hold on long enough for them to find him.
They’d only just made it onto the floor when Emori and Devin halted simultaneously.
The rest stopped as they noticed. Devin motioned for them to stay back and slipped his hand from Emori’s as he lifted his gun, carefully stepping up to the turn at the end of the hall.
No one tried to stop him. He was the most capable at that moment.
He kept his back to the wall as he subtly peered around the bend. Then his gun lowered. Devin stepped out into the corridor, his eyes unreadable as he stared down the hallway.
He hadn’t told them that it was safe to follow but Lia wanted to see what he was seeing. Apparently, the others did too because they all followed as she walked closer to him.
At first, she wasn’t sure what she was looking at. Even with the lights on, it was hard to make out the figure from the distance. It was definitely a person, but they weren’t walking.
They were crawling. The others seemed to have noticed the same thing as the atmosphere shifted.
Squinting her eyes, Lia could see that it wasn’t an enforcer; they weren’t wearing a uniform. It wasn’t Cade either. Only when she heard the voice did her blood run cold.
“Deianira…”
Jude.
Lia stopped dead as she watched Jude Ivar drag himself along the floor toward them, leaving a trail of blood in his path.
She felt nothing. Absolutely nothing. She expected to be scared or enraged coming face to face with him, but not numb. It was as if she was looking at a stranger. Lia might have had fifty percent of his DNA but this man wasn’t her father.
That thought was strangely comforting. She felt nothing for him because he was nothing to her.
“Deianira, help me,” he begged, as he drew closer. “He’s gone crazy. He’s trying to kill me!”
Who?
Lia looked over at Deianira. Her face had completely fallen. She didn’t even look angry. Just sad.
While Jude wasn’t Lia’s father, he was Deianira’s. In the sense that mattered anyway. He raised her, she looked up to him. Maybe, it would’ve made more sense for Lia to be jealous of her. Jealous that her actual father was in the Dome raising Deianira when she was a street kid on the outside, but Lia could only feel sorry for her. She never had a father but Deianira was losing hers.
Jude reached out a hand as he drew closer.
“Help me…”
“I know,” Deianira whispered as he struggled to his knees.
And just like that, his mask fell.
“You rotten bitch,” he spat.
Deianira physically flinched at his tone while the rest of them took a step back.
“This was never supposed to be yours,” he panted as he clutched his shoulder and stood. There was a hole in his polo neck; he must’ve been shot. “None of it. I was the firstborn.”
“What are you talking about?” Deianira asked, defeated.
“I was born first!” he roared, striding forward. “The throne was supposed to be mine! She only got it because she presented first but that’s not the way it works.” He shook his head manically. “No, they took it from me.”
“My mother? What does that have to do with me?”
“Everything! You were never even supposed to be an heir!”
Lia gently laid a hand on Deianira’s shoulder to urge her backward as Jude continued his advance.
She sniffed. “Why didn’t you just kill me that night?”
Lia wasn’t sure what she was talking about but getting away from him seemed more important.
Jude’s lips split into a cruel smile. “You don’t think I tried?” He laughed humorlessly. “That was the whole plan until you snapped out of it. You were too powerful for your own good. The best I could do was make you forget.”
Some ice returned to Deianira’s voice as she yanked her arm away from Lia.
“Well, I didn’t forget.”
“I see that,” Jude retorted dryly.
Deianira stared at him for a while. She looked like her whole world was crumbling.
Lia was so busy watching her face that she didn’t see her reach for her gun. Deianira snatched the gun out of Lia’s grip and pointed it at Jude.
He tilted his head and slowed.
“You’re going to shoot me?” He narrowed his eyes. “Come on, sweetheart, you’re better than that.” He took a slow step forward.
Deianira gritted her teeth and shook her head.
“Stop that!”
Another step.
“Whatever happened to honor?”
She grunted as she rubbed her ear against her shoulder.
“Get out of my head…”
One more step.
“I’ve seen you fight looking more dead than you do right now. Why don’t you put the gun down and come here? We both know you’re not…”
Jude flinched, froze, then coughed, blood spotting on the ground in front of him.
What the…
Before Lia could even finish that thought, Jude fell to his knees revealing a figure several feet behind him, hand pointed straight out. As they lowered their hand and stepped into view, Lia’s heart almost stopped in her chest.
