A Little Wicked

24. Inquisition

CHAPTER XXIV

INQUISITION

Edward returned home that night.

Still mortified by the things he had seen, he didn't say a single word to his family in which was waiting for him in the lobby, ignoring their insistent questions, urgent thoughts and worried looks at him, wanting to know where he was and what happened.

He had any emotional strength in having to deal with them.

He felt too sad, too shocked, too hurt... All of that was too much for him to process: in the past three days he had oscillated between happiness, uncertainty, euphoria, love, mistrust, fear, anger and disappointment in an inconstant way, but at that moment he felt everything at once. It was like being inside a hurricane's eye; Jasper cringed against the wall when he felt Edward's emotions, leaving him momentarily agonized to feel his brother's pain.

As he climbed the stairs towards his room, Edward flinched slightly when he heard the echo of Malfoy's scream in his head when the blond wizard had a piece of his tongue cut off, followed by images of the bloody cruelty of the sacrifices, Harry's apathy towards it all... And of course, the terrible realization that his boyfriend and friends were what his family - and even the wolves - warned him about: they were satanic wizards capable of committing barbaric acts... Harry had deceived him since the beginning.

Sitting on the bedroom carpet and leaning his back against the wall, he stared at his reflection in the window glass that filled the opposite wall entirely.

He sobbed dry, his shoulders trembling as his chest made the deep, tremulous sound of a cry that he was physically unable to produce... That was the only thing he was able to do at that moment - cry without spilling one tear, standing in that exact position for hours on end and begging for all that to be an awful nightmare and for him to wake up in Harry's bed where he had been hours before, when everything seemed perfect.

It was all in vain.

In recent months he had been immersed in a lie in which he himself helped to keep - all the times that Harry was doing something suspicious, he looked the other way and ignored the signs, becoming in the process an accomplice of that farce architected by the wizards. But now, he had come across the truth and it was painful, cruel and unforgiving...

There was no turning back. He had to deal with it and how to do it, God only knew how.

While Edward was locked in his bedroom, downstairs the six vampires were in deep silence as a question hung over their heads: 'What will happen now?'

The speculations they had about the trio seemed to have been implicitly confirmed by Edward's gaze when he returned home, but instead of declaring an end to their fears, it only served as a catalyst for more and more doubts to arise and leave them even more uncertain about themselves and everything around them.

Not uncertain, they were frightened.

Terribly frightened and with that strange feeling of helplessness with the whole situation, as it was as if they were suddenly transported to a bizarre and macabre alternative reality involving satanic witchcraft, resurrection rituals and - possibly - the figure of the Devil himself.

With the arrival of the morning, none of the younger immortals had gone to school, as they were still "camping", which was perfect as none of them had the patience or willingness to continue playing their roles as socially renegade adopted teenagers - that Forks High School went to hell, for they had far greater concerns in that moment than seeing trigonometry for the fiftieth time.