Page 131 of Shadowface

Kill her. Kill her. Kill her.

Another voice, another presence.

I grind my teeth. Lincoln’s not dead, just weak. Desperate to experience what I’m not willing to give him yet. But this voice is something different. This voice is not Lincoln. I don’t recognize it.

An image pops into my head…a memory. One of him and Summer, fucking right in this shower and smug satisfaction blooms through me. His smug satisfaction. The moments he stole with her. She’s gazing at him with adoration, a look she’s only supposed to give me.

I crush his glasses in my hand and whip them against the wall.

“Fuck you,” I grit out to the mirror, as if he’s staring back at me. “This is my life. You can’t have it. You don’t fucking exist anymore.”

I let out a scream and punch the sink, then take deep breaths to calm myself. Those precious breaths I took for granted.

I need to take control of my sanity. I need to take control of my body. I need to take control of Summer, and to do that, I need to send her a stronger message.

Ten minutes later, I stroll upstairs to the main house, a bit more composed. Lucy walks by with a pile of towels in her hand, and her eyes shine when she sees me.

“Mikael,” she says knowingly. “Where’s the girl?”

“Hi, Lucy,” I respond, giving her my devilish grin she used to love. At least someone’s happy to see me. “She’ll be back soon, I promise.”

She nods, her eyes flashing. “She’s perfect for you, Mikael. Don’t let her get away.”

I rest my hand on her arm. “I know, Lucy.”

She keeps walking, then pauses, tilting her head slightly. “You’re not going to go away again, are you?”

I cross my arms and lean against one of the large pillars at the front of the house. “Not a chance, Lucy.”

“Good.” She carries on, disappearing into the dark, whistling.

When I walk into the parlor room, Xander’s sitting in his high-backed chair with Bianca in her usual spot at his feet. Wendy and Gabe are sitting together, and they are all watching a movie.

Everyone ignores me, as usual. The only exception is Bianca, who crinkles her nose when I walk in and cross the room toward them.

Lincoln rarely makes appearances upstairs, always preferring to work in his dark basement hellhole. I, however, am getting a taste for hard liquor and enjoy the company of others after years of solitude and a muted existence. To walk, speak, and move in a way that’s distinctly me.

Plus, I need to make my presence known in this house. The sons and daughters need to know there is going to be a new Order. One where a child of a founding family will no longer take over as they have for the past 275 years. They will all realize what I am soon enough.

An anomaly in the code. An exception. A child of a sacrifice who shouldn’t even exist, let alone not kill on the spot.

I am more holy than Christ, and their day of rapture is coming.

Bianca scowls at me as I pass, barely an afterthought in her tiny world that revolves around Xander. Wendy and Gabe barely pass me a glance, too.

But Xander… Xander looks like he’s seen a ghost.

I walk over to him, grab the drink out of his hand, sip it, and take residence on my usual spot in a chair across from him, lounging my legs casually over it.

A sly smile slips out of me as he stares at me with a slight grin on his face.

Challenge accepted.

“What’s up, brother?” I flash a quick smile.

The room grows quiet, watching the two of us as the tension grows between us. A coil of anger radiates off Xander, because the last time I saw him, I offered to bludgeon him in his sleep.

I’m rather relaxed for once and settle deeper into my chair with Xander’s whiskey in my hand, which I drink down in a single gulp, then motion for Lucy, who appears out of nowhere, to get me another.