A Queen's Revenge - Hell's Vipers MC Book #1

S E V E N T E E N

i finished watching the witcher and i am dying because I. NEED. MORE. - just found out the second season comes soon!!

-+-

The next day, Dylan found it difficult to open her eyes. Normally, she'd be up and running three hours before, but when seven AM came around and Dylan still felt sleepy, she realized that nothing had been normal since she'd stepped foot in that hospital her first day here.

She continued to roll around in her bed, avoiding the inevitable of facing Millie and anything else, really, because it was easier to hide than it was to confront. It had always been, and yet she just had to confront Millie yesterday—or earlier this morning rather.

Coming to think of it, Dylan had always confronted all the wrong things in her life. Why had she never hidden? She knew that hiding was the better option, so why did she balk from it?

She shut herself up on that front.

When nine AM finally rolled around, Dylan heaved herself from the comforts of her mattress. She made quick work of her morning routine, donning her long-sleeved sweater as she always did.

She heard the babbles of Audrey as she descended the stairs, and prayed to all the Gods she knew the names of that they spare her Millie's wrath if only just a little bit.

It seemed as if the Gods had finally listened to her pleas.

When Dylan had made her way into the kitchen, Millie did not say two words to her nor did she make any notion to interact. Dylan decided not to spark up yet another fight and thanked the Gods quietly as she went about her own business fixing breakfast for both herself and Audrey, seeing as Millie still had no interest in investing time into her daughter for some odd reason.

Dylan gritted her teeth.

Flashbacks of her own negligent father began to take root in Dylan's mind and it became harder to even look at Millie at all. She had suspected that Audrey would speak up about her mother's absence of attention, but it seemed as if the little girl knew of her mother's plight and left her alone, bumbling about to herself and enjoying her aunt's undivided attention.

The morning continued with that awkward tension and it was only after Dylan had dropped off Audrey at school did Millie deign to speak.

"I'm not going to the hospital today." Mille's hoarse voice slipped out of her lips as if it were a mistake. The articulation of the words was choppy and choked as if she was trying to remember the art of speech.

Dylan had pulled into the parking lot of a nearby cafe by then, and it was easy to avert her eyes while Millie shook herself out of whatever she was in. Focusing on a family happily eating lunch visible by the glass walls, she tried not to pity her sister-in-law too much. Dylan could almost feel the pain reverberating off of Millie in waves.

She was once like that, after that fateful day.

She remembered the hollow silence that had taken over her, the terror—

"Take me to Kayla's house."

Dylan refrained from clenching her jaw at Millie's commanding tone that had suddenly taken over her voice. She had played slave for this long though, and there was not a reason in sight for her to stop sucking it up.

"I need directions." There was a bite to her words because Dylan wasn't about to drive around aimlessly and she wasn't about to completely back down either.

"Ask Wolf."

Dylan snorted. "Is there something wrong with your—" Inhaling sharply, Dylan stopped herself from finishing that sentence and spitting more words of venom. She'd done enough damage already and been lucky with the Gods once. She was willing to bet they wouldn't be so generous if—when—she fucks up again.