White Hot
Page 56“Is Mom home?”
Bernard nodded. “Nevada, about the car . . .”
“Later.”
I got up and walked through the hallway into our house and to the kitchen. My mother was at the sink, rinsing a plate. Arabella lounged at the table, playing with her phone.
My mother took in my hair. “Eventful night?”
“Is there any reason Victoria Tremaine would be interested in me?”
My mother’s face turned white. The plate slipped out of her hands and shattered on the floor.
“Mom!” Arabella jumped up.
“Leave the room.” Her voice turned cold and harsh.
Arabella blinked. “Mom, what’s wron . . .”
“Now.”
My sister took off, her eyes opened wide. Mom fixed Bern with a thousand-yard stare. He retreated without a word.
My mother slowly wiped her hands with a towel. Her face turned rigid and calculating. I had only seen that expression once, when she had become a total stranger and ended her PI career. Fear squirmed through me.
“What did you do?” she asked, her voice eerily calm.
“I saved a little girl. Amy Madrid.”
“Who knows?”
“Augustine and his secretary. Mom, you’re scaring me.”
“Is Victoria on her way to the city?”
“Yes.”
“When is she arriving?”
My mother hung the towel on a rack with methodical precision. “Listen to me very carefully. You have to wipe Augustine’s mind.”
“What?”
“You have to wipe Augustine’s mind. Fry him if you have to.”
I recoiled. “Do you have any idea what you’re asking me to do? Even if I did know how to do it—and I don’t—it would turn him into a vegetable.”
“You can do it,” my mother said with complete confidence.
She’d turned into someone I didn’t recognize.
“I know him. He is a human being. I can’t just break his mind. I won’t.”
“Then I’ll kill him.”
“Have you lost your mind?” my voice squeaked.
“Wipe his mind, or I’ll kill him.”
“Mother! That’s not what we do. It’s not who we are. Dad wouldn’t—”
“It’s not just about you.” A hint of emotion finally broke through my mother’s expression. “You have a responsibility to your sisters! If the Tremaine bitch finds you, she’ll kill me and your grandmother. Arabella will end up in a cage, and you and Catalina will end up serving her for the rest of her life. Is that what you want? You have to protect your family.”
I opened my mouth but no words came.
Mom’s bottom lip trembled. She moved across the kitchen and gripped me into a fierce hug. “I know. I know it’s hard. That’s okay. I’m asking too much. Don’t worry, baby. I’ll take care of it. Forget it ever happened.”
I broke free. “Why is she after us?”
“She’s your paternal grandmother.”
The hair on the back of my arms stood on end. I dropped into a chair.
“She couldn’t carry a child to term, so she did . . . things and your father was born. She wanted a son who was a Prime. Your dad had no magic. None. She always neglected him, but while she was waiting for his talent to manifest, she would pull his mind apart every day, looking for the evidence of magic. When she realized that he was completely normal, the indifference turned to hate. He ran away from her as soon as he could. She needs you desperately, because without another Prime, her House will die with her.”
Oh my God.
No, she wouldn’t. Like Rogan said, this was House warfare. I was the oldest Prime in my family. I’d made this mess. This was my responsibility. I held up my hand, my own voice dull. “No. I’ll take care of it.”
“Nevada . . .”
“I’ll take care of it, Mom. I’ll take care of it by tonight. Promise me you will wait. Promise me.”
“I won’t do anything until you tell me,” my mother said.
I got up, held my head high, and went to my room to clean up.
I took a shower, dried and brushed my hair, and put on my work clothes, moving on autopilot. I should’ve been freaking out, but somehow I couldn’t muster any emotion. All I had was a cold methodical rationale. It was what I needed.
Victoria Tremaine was my grandmother. In retrospect it made sense. My father’s reluctance to speak about his family, his insistence that I was very careful with my magic, and my mother’s distrust of Primes. If Victoria Tremaine was my mother-in-law, I wouldn’t trust Primes either.
Victoria Tremaine had no heirs. Certainly no Prime heirs. That was an established fact. If she realized I existed, she would move heaven and earth to make me part of House Tremaine. She would do it by holding my sisters hostage. Of the three of us, I was the only truthseeker. It would be slavery for the three of us.
I couldn’t let her meet with Augustine. She would crack him like a walnut.
I couldn’t wipe Augustine’s mind either. This was not what we did. It . . . it went against everything I stood for. Yet I would have to do it to save my family. It was that, or my mother would kill him.
I couldn’t see a way out of it. I had to take care of my family.
I walked down the stairs. Catalina marched out of the media room to intercept me. Matilda followed her, mimicking my sister’s movements. Any other time I would’ve found it comical.
“What’s going on? Arabella said Mom went crazy . . .”
“Mom is going through a rough time right now. Don’t worry. It will all get straightened out by tomorrow.”
“What rough time? Why? You look like you’re going to kill somebody.”
Funny choice of words. “Nobody is getting killed.”
“I hate when you treat me like a child.”
I looked at her for a moment to make sure she understood. “People are trying to kill us. Mom is freaking out. Augustine is freaking out. I’m trying to fix it. It would help if you didn’t freak out at me too.”
She fell silent. I kept walking.
“To make a plan.”
I stepped out of the warehouse and paused by the Honda. It looked perfectly generic, at least three years old. I would ask Bern about it when I came back. I left the warehouse, walked two blocks over, and stopped on the sidewalk in front of Rogan’s HQ. This wasn’t my wisest move, but I had nowhere to turn. I dialed his number.
“Yes?” he answered.
“I need your advice,” I said. “I’m in front of your HQ. May I come in?”
“Yes.”
I walked in past the soldiers, who all stopped talking as I passed them, and climbed the stairs. Rogan was waiting for me. He surveyed my work clothes with his familiar focus.
“I don’t want Bug to hear us, if that’s possible.”
“It’s possible.”
Rogan led me to a door in the far wall and held it open. I walked into a small office. A desk, a couple of chairs, and a bookshelf filled with notebooks and manuals. Rogan closed the door and sat on the corner of the desk.
I swallowed. Everything in me rebelled against sharing the information, but I had no choice. He already knew I was a Prime. He said he had no intentions of fighting me.
“Victoria Tremaine is my grandmother.”
The five words fell like bricks and lay between us.
His eyebrows crept up a fraction of an inch. “I had expected House Shaffer. Tremaine is a surprise.”
“She’s coming to see Augustine tomorrow. If she finds out I exist, she’ll destroy my family. My mother will kill Augustine unless I wipe his mind.”
“A predicament.” Rogan’s expression was nonchalant, as if he were playing a particularly convoluted game of chess. “Do you want me to rescue you?”
It was tempting. So tempting. “No. I want advice.”
Pride flashed in his eyes. “You’re turning into a dragon.”
“I have no choice. I own this. Even if my mother tried her best, I don’t believe she could get a shot at Augustine.”