Before I could even speak, Sebastian’s face changed. Instinctively, he moved to shield Lily behind him, like he was guarding something precious.
He frowned impatiently. “You said you had good news. Say it. I don’t have time to waste.”
He looked so eager to go comfort that child that my eyes burned.
My voice shook. “Mae. That was supposed to be our daughter’s name.”
His expression didn’t change.
“It’s just a name. Are you really going to make a fuss over that too? Lily isn’t well. Don’t start acting crazy.”
Then he looked me up and down with open contempt.
“Natalie, go look in a mirror. You know what you look like right now? A shrew.”
A shrew.
The word hit me like a bomb.
My mind went blank.
I looked at Sebastian’s impatient face, at Lily’s smug little smile from behind him, and something inside me snapped.
I lunged forward, shoved Sebastian away, grabbed Lily by the hair, and dragged her outside.
She screamed the whole way.
I stuffed her into the car, locked the doors, and drove like hell to the apartment where they lived together.
I rushed into the bedroom, picked up the baby from the bed, and took the gun Sebastian kept hidden in the bedside table.
Five minutes later, he and Lily were standing in front of me again.
Lily was crying in his arms like some tragic heroine.
And I had become the villain.
How ironic.
Hatred had burned every last shred of reason out of me. I held the gun and pointed it at the child in my arms.
“Make her kneel,” I said to Sebastian, my voice shaking. “Tell her to kowtow to me. Or I pull the trigger.”
Sebastian’s face went ashen with rage.
“Natalie, what the hell is wrong with you?”
I stared into those eyes that looked like they wanted to cut me into pieces, and for a moment I truly wondered if this was the same boy who had once shared stolen bread with me under a leaking roof.
Back when he first changed, I had actually paid a medium a fortune to ask whether he had been possessed.
Because the Sebastian I knew would never have hurt me like this.
In the instant I faltered, he moved.
He yanked the baby from my arms and shoved her at Lily. Then his other hand clamped onto my wrist, trying to wrestle the gun away.
The shot exploded.
The bullet ripped into the ceiling.
By the time I came back to myself, the gun was pointed at his forehead.
And he had me pinned to the bed.
His hand was around my throat.
His eyes were blood-red.
Veins stood out at his temples as he snarled, “Natalie, you’re insane. You’re a curse. Why don’t you just die? Why don’t you just die?”
I laughed.
I actually laughed.
And then I cried.
The person who had dragged me out of hell was the same person now telling me to die.
So what exactly had I been living for all this time?
His voice kept pounding in my head.
You’re a curse.
Why don’t you just die?
So I thought, fine.
If that’s what you want.
I twisted my wrist and turned the gun toward my own temple.
Sebastian’s face changed instantly.
He knocked the gun from my hand.
The force of it sent me flying backward.
My lower abdomen smashed into the sharp edge of the headboard.
Pain tore through me so violently I collapsed to the floor, curling around my stomach, both hands instinctively protecting the baby.
Sebastian stared at the hand that had pushed me.
For one second, he looked stunned.
Like he wanted to come toward me.
Then Lily screamed, “Sebastian! The baby’s not breathing!”
And that was it.
He turned.
He ran to Lily.
Ran to that child.
Didn’t look back at me once.
Warm blood slid down my thighs and soaked the pale carpet red.
The terror of losing my baby forced me to move. I dragged myself across the floor toward the door inch by inch, shaking, sobbing, reaching.
“Sebastian… save our child…”
But that night, no one heard me except the wind.