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How did it come to this?

Was I just afraid?

Selfish?

Stupid?

To think that a simple little concoction would make it easy to work for her dad, easy to kill, easy to use it as an excuse to do the one thing I was born and bred to do

It did

It was easier to bla Claire and everyone else in the Baratta Fa toward

He has to know they’re dangerous

And they hate our power

Hell, we still don’t knohen they actually poisoned me

“Did she suffer?” Jetro, the boss of the Baratta’s laughed Blood caked his s Or how about e added tiny little boeneration kids of all the bosses? Did you feel powerless? Do you feel powerless now?”

I kicked hiht Do chunks of time

“Don’t kill him,” I said “I want him to suffer, to watch his entire empire collapse under the arm of the Sinacores” I lit a match and s” I dropped it on the ground and walked away, knowing full well that he didn’t have the resources to come after us

I remember it

Then realize that I’ one of my blackouts, and I haven’t re-read the journals in weeks

I s My throat feels thick

I stare up at Izzy “Kiss me then”

“Wh-what?”

“You’re here to say goodbye I at least deserve a kiss”

She’s tentative as she walks toward ainst the ceht it, I fight it hard, I strain against the ropes

It’s happening, and I can’t stop it

Fuck

I have zero control

I have nothing left

Except for Izzy

I focus on her face

And everything suddenly goes black

Chapter Twenty-One

“But the teular and profound at last overcaestions of alarm” —Robert Louis Stevenson

Izzy