Chapter 147
147
Kael Vale’s POV
+8 Pearls
I watched as the black SUV disappeared into the night, its red taillights cutting through the darkness like a wound that would never close. I couldn’t move. My knees buckled beneath me, and I collapsed onto the cold pavement, my breath coming in shallow gasps.
Riley was gone.
And this time… it was final.
She hadn’t even looked back.
I’d spent years convincing myself that blood meant something, that what we had–what we used to have–was enough to keep her tethered to me, to this cursed family. But I was wrong.
I’d destroyed it all. With my own hands. With my cowardice.
By the time I managed to drag myself into my car, my fingers were numb from the night air. The engine roared as I sped through the darkened streets of Stormridge, pushing the limits juseto feel something, anything beyond the gnawing pit in my chest.
When I arrived at the hospital, the air reeked of antiseptic and pain. The sharp, anguished cries coming from the Ebonclaw Pack’s private ward nearly split my skull open.
My parents‘ morphine had worn off.
Father’s guttural screams shook the walls. “Pain pump! Give us the damn pain pump, now!”
Mother was curied in a fetal position, tears streaming down her cheeks. “I can’t–I can’t take it anymore,” she sobbed to the nurse hovering helplessly at the foot of the bed .
But I couldn’t let them have it. Not yet
Not after everything
I stormed into the room, and before the nurse could even lift the pump , I growled, “No. Don’t touch them.”
My voice came out raw– more feral than human . The nurse froze, wide–eyed. My father’s pain –flushed face turned from pleading to furious.
“Are you insane?” he barked “You want us to die in agony?”
A bitter laugh tore out of my throat. I didn’t even know where it came from. It just burst out–loud and cracked and manic.
I was losing i
The sound of shattering glass rang out as I swept an entire tray of medicine off the cabinet, sending glass vials scattering across the tide like spilled blood.
The room went silent.
All eyes on me
“ You know who char had to suffer without a pain pump ?” I roared , chest heaving. “Riley. In a rogue prison. With her leg chattered, her bones protruding and no one to even set jt”
Father fine bed
She lay in a cell bleeding and broken, because of you. Because of Scarlett. Because you chose your precious adopted daughter over your blood”
Mothers hp trembled “Karl she’s always been so stubborn Always starting hights—of course she got herself hurt You know
lip
147
+B Pearls
how girls like her get treated in prison. She brings it on herself.”
“Brings it on herself? My voice cracked. “You think she chose to be beaten until she couldn’t walk? That she wanted to lose everything? Her education? Her future? Her dignity ?”
Mother covered her face and sobbed, and for a brief second, guilt pierced through me.
But then I saw Riley’s face again–pale, drawn, eyes dead with exhaustion, standing behind Lucien Duskgrave like he was the only thing left keeping her upright.
She didn’t cry. She didn’t scream. She ju
just looked at me like I was a stranger.
A stranger she loathed.
“She’s gone,” I said quietly. “She’ll never come back .”
Father tried to sit up, teeth clenched against the pain. “Don’t be dramatic. She’s a selfish brat, always was. Everything was fine until she started making trouble.”
“Fine” 1 spat. “You blackmailed her into taking the fall for Scarlett. She had a full scholarship to Ashmoor Academy–do you remember that? She could’ve been a battle instructor by now. But instead, she spent five years in that hellhole so you wouldn’t lose face in the Pack Council.”
“You’re being ridiculous,” Father hissed. “Scarlett didn’t even want that stupid embroidery award . Riley must’ve sabotaged it to make her look bad.”
I turned to him slowly.
“You think this is about a piece of thread?” My voice dropped to a whisper. “ You think that was her breaking point? Do you have any idea what it does to a person to be discarded like garbage by the ones she called family?”
They stared at me, stunned into silence. For once, the two of them didn’t have a response.
“She doesn’t want anything to do with us now,” I continued, almost calmly. “And I can’t blame her.”
Mother whimpered. “But we raised her…”
“ You raised her to serve. To be lesser. You paraded Scarlett around like a daughter of honor and shoved Riley into the shadows .”
“She’s not even our blood-
“She’s my sister.” I growled. “And whether or not she ever forgives us, she deserved better than what you gave her.”
I couldn’t look at them anymore.
I turned and walked out, leaving their broken bodies and worse, their excuses, behind me
Let them suffer for one night. Riley had suffered for years .
Let them scream:
Let them feel what it was like to be unheard
Because I finally understood what she’d felt all along
And by the Moon. 1’d never forgive myself for being part of it
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