World of Trouble (Gaia Files Book 2) by R.J. Sierra

Author:R.J. Sierra [Sierra, R.J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Aethon Books
Published: 2021-02-01T16:00:00+00:00

17

I fell back against a tree and stood there, shivering. I couldn't take my eyes off the thing that had once been Mahoney. Couldn't wrap my head around the nightmare in the moonlight.

His body had been turned into a giant patchwork obscenity, pumped up and laced with stone. He'd been brainwashed, reduced to a lumbering brute. His memory of me had been wiped or suppressed to the point of not caring if he killed me. Was any part of him still alive in there at all?

Tears rolled down my face as I stared. I felt responsible; he wouldn't have come to Parapets in the first place if not for me. Maybe none of this would have happened if I'd gone looking for him that morning, when he hadn't come out of his room.

Cassandra had said he'd gone back to town, and I'd accepted that. I'd wanted to believe her, and I'd made a terrible mistake. While my back was turned, someone had transformed him into a monster. Someone at Groundswell had done it.

That much was certain. Mahoney and the other Crossbreed were working for Groundswell, patrolling Parapets property. Cassandra had lied to cover it up, and none of her pals had come forward with the truth. They were all in on it.

Now that I let the tune play in my mind instead of shutting it out like I'd been doing, it felt right. Of course Groundswell was bad news; after all, they were the same bunch who'd been pimping Aggie and the nymphs at Secret Valley. Aggie had died in their custody, hadn't she?

And yet, I'd managed to convince myself the people of Parapets were well-intentioned. I'd written off the Divinities escort business as a lapse in judgment balanced out by the good work it had funded. I'd decided Aggie's killer might have passed through Parapets, but Parapets had had nothing to do with him.

I'd pushed all my instincts to the farthest, darkest corner of my mind, in other words, and left them there to rot. All because I'd wanted to believe in this place and these people. Even after Aggie's warning from beyond the grave, I'd still tried to believe in them. I'd tried to hold on in spite of everything. Because I'd needed them to fill a void I'd never known was in me until now.

And poor Mahoney had paid the price.

Looking at him made me feel sick to my stomach. Made me ashamed of myself. Pissed at myself.

Pissed at Parapets and Groundswell, too. Way beyond pissed, actually. As the first waves of shock and sickness and shame faded, rage took hold of me and wouldn't let go. It spread fast as a wildfire through a national park, the kind of fire you can't put out. The kind that has a mind of its own and a power straight out of the Old Testament.

I wiped away my tears. Pushed away from the tree I'd been leaning against. Finally ready to do the job I'd come to Parapets to do.

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