Kasia didn't know if she wanted to scream or vomit after processing the horrifying truth Victor had just revealed. Her chest heaved with ragged breaths as she began fighting against her restraints.
"No, no, no, I need to leave. I need to get out of here," she muttered. "It can't be true. I couldn't have... I didn't..."
"Pull yourself together, Thorne," Victor ordered sternly. "This display is unbecoming of a hunter."
His cold indifference only intensified Kasia's feelings. She snapped her head up, hazel eyes blazing with a mixture of fury and anguish. "Unbecoming? You just told me I might have killed my own parents, and you expect me to be calm?"
Victor's jaw tightened, his brows furrowing. "I expect you to face the truth with dignity, not hysterics."
Kasia jerked forward, toward Victor. The metal restraints creaked at the force which caused Victor to take a step back from her. "How can you be so heartless? Don't you understand what this means?" Kasia exclaimed.
"I understand perfectly well," Victor replied, his tone clipped. "But losing control won't change the facts. You need to-"
"Don't tell me what I need!" Kasia screamed, her voice becoming a growl. Her right leg breaks free, launching the metal restraint into the desk. "You don't know anything about what I need!"
Victor's eyes flashed dangerously, but his composure remained intact. Without a word, he reached for the small button on his desk, pressing it firmly.
Kasia's mind raced, a torrent of memories flooding her consciousness. The night of the attack, the blood, the screams- it was all a lie. The hunters doomed her parents and manipulated her into killing them. They were dead because of her.
"This conversation is over," Victor declared, rising from his chair. "You're clearly in no state to continue. Someone will escort you to your room, and we'll resume when you've regained your senses."
"My senses?" Kasia laughed bitterly, tears streaming down her face. "Everything I thought I knew is a lie. How am I supposed to make sense of that?"
The door opened, and two stone-faced hunters entered. Victor nodded to them, then turned his piercing gaze back to Kasia. "You'll have time to process this information. Use it wisely, Thorne. Your entire worldview may have shifted, but our mission remains the same."
As the hunters approached her, Kasia felt a surge of desperation. "Do you really think that this doesn't change anything? You're delusional!"
But Victor had already turned away, dismissing her with a wave of his hand. Kasia's legs moved mechanically as the hunters guided her forward. Her mind was chaos as she desperately kept calling out to Deva.
"I killed them," she whispered, her voice barely audible. "Oh God, I killed my own parents."
The hunter to her left grunted, shoving her forward. "Keep moving, Thorne."
Suddenly, they stopped. Kasia blinked, realizing they stood before a door. It swung open with a soft hiss, and before she could react, she was shoved unceremoniously inside.
"Hey!" Kasia spun around, but the door had already slammed shut. The click of a lock echoed in the silence.
Her eyes widened as she took in her surroundings. The room was an exact replica of her bedroom from before she'd left on her quest to find her sister. The familiar floral bedspread, the worn desk in the corner, even the faded posters on the wall- it was all there, all there to keep their next subject as comfortable as possible.
"No," Kasia whispered, her knees buckling. She collapsed to the floor, wrapping her arms around herself as violent sobs wracked her body. "No, no, no!"
A warmth suddenly bloomed in her chest. She felt someone reaching out through the pack bond. Kasia expected it to be Ethan, but the presence was wrong. His presence, Kenneth's presence, felt like salt on the already reopened wound.
"Kasia," Kenneth's voice echoed in her mind, laden with concern. "Take a breath. I won't let them harm you."
"Are you serious right now?!" she screamed, both aloud and through their connection. "You brought me here. You're part of the problem!"
Kenneth's alarm reverberated through the bond. "There's a reason for it, I promise you. It is only temporary and then we can leave."
But his words only intensified Kasia's hysteria. She curled tighter into herself, nails digging into her arms as she rocked back and forth on the cold floor.
"There is no 'we,'" she choked out between sobs. "There will NEVER be 'we'. There's just me and the blood on my hands. The blood of my parents. The blood of every innocent I've hunted."
Suddenly, the noise in Kasia's mind ceased and all that could be hear was her sobbing.
"Goddess, I leave for just a short period of time and you're already a mess," Deva's voice cut through the quiet.
"Deva? Deva!" Kasia asked.
"Do you have any idea how long it took me to break through? And I had to listen to that bastard talking to you the whole time," Deva responded. "How dare he mark us without our permission!"
Kasia's breath caught in her throat. "Deva?" she whispered, her voice hoarse from crying. "What... where did you go? Why did you leave me?"
She could almost feel Deva's eye roll. "Oh please, drama queen. I didn't leave you. That bitch Aimee poisoned us with wolfsbane, remember?"
Kasia's fingers dug into the carpet, anchoring herself to reality. "I remember."
"When I get my hands on her, I'm going to do what we should've done from the very beginning," Deva snarled.
A fresh wave of despair washed over Kasia. "That's not going to happen," she murmured, her gaze fixed on the locked door. "We're trapped here. It's over."
"Trapped?" Deva scoffed. "Since when has a locked door ever stopped us, stopped you?"
Kasia shook her head, tears threatening to spill again. "You don't understand. Victor, he-"
"I don't give a damn about Victor," Deva interrupted. "He's going to get what's coming to him. Now, you're going to put on your big girl panties, get off this floor, and we're going to work on an escape plan."