Pernicious | Kai Parker

Chapter 35

"Your parents?"

The young man seemed to want to nod, but couldn't, because he was still frozen in place. Narrowing her eyes, Amelia swirled her hands together, and he was thrown into the living room, crashing onto one of the couches.

The younger siphoner closed the front door first, then went to start her interrogation. "Explain," she demanded, holding her hand out and making a knife materialize into it. "Or I'll dissect you."

The man looked afraid, but he wasn't going to back down. "I don't know who the hell you are," he mentioned, "but I know my parents are good people, and you need to let them go... if they're still alive."

"Oh, they're alive," said Amelia cautiously, not going to reveal her identity yet. "Your father is... a little on the worse side, but I let him live a bit longer."

"Please," the man said, his eyes starting to tear up. "Please, don't hurt them anymore. Take me instead— I'll do anything. I'll give you whatever you want."

"For starters," said Kai, holding up the 1903 Ascendant, "we'd like to know where your mommy and daddy hid the other Ascendants."

Clearly, the man was all too eager to get them out, because instantly, he began to tell them about the different hiding places in the house. Both Kai and Amelia suspected that he didn't know how important the objects he was giving to them actually were.

"That should be everything," he panted, once he'd told Kai where to find the Ascendants, the spells for destroying prison worlds, the records of celestial events the Gemini Coven had used to make prison worlds in the past, and booklets on each of the founding families of the Coven— one of which were the Hildegards. "Please, let my parents go."

"It's time to learn more about you, actually," Amelia noted, bringing the knife to his chin. "If we're satisfied with your answers, we'll let you live."

"I'll tell you anything you want," said the man, "after you let me see my parents."

Kai shoved his foot into the man's chest. "You don't get to make any decisions. You do this on our terms, or I swear to god, I'm gonna go back into the room they're in, and rip their hearts out."

"Can you at least tell me who the hell you are?!" the man asked. "I don't know why the hell you want all this stuff and I don't know why the hell you're hurting my parents. Explain that to me, and I'll be calm."

Amelia and Kai shared a look. Kai decided to be the one answering. "Well, you're clearly out of the loop," he said, leaning over the man. "Because I'm your leader, and you didn't acknowledge me for shit."

"I-I've been traveling the whole summer," said the man. "I heard that Joshua Parker's son won the Merge, but I didn't know who..."

"Kai Parker," the siphoner told him. "That's me. And you are—?"

The man managed to gulp. "James Emilio Hildegard-Torres."

Amelia's jaw twitched. "When's your birthday?"

"December 17th, 1994."

"How many weeks were you when your mother gave birth to you?"

"I— uh, thirty nine, I think?"

Amelia paused for a moment, doing the math in her head. Her expression went from hurt to anger.

Her mother had already been pregnant with James when she sent Amelia away.

This just made her rage flare up more. She was mad enough, thinking that James had been conceived as a replacement for her. Truth was, the replacement had already been up and ready to go when she was sent to foster care.