Red by Alyxandra Harvey Page B

punch easily. “Settle down.” He knocked me back into the wall. “We need more champions,” he continued as if nothing happened. “To prove we can handle the bestiary.”
    I didn’t want to be talking about this. I wanted to be tracking down Summer’s killer. Wanted to know its name before I gutted it.
    Maybe I was more like Dad than I’d thought.
    “We’ll have to hold more Trials, convince the twins to finally honor their birthright.”
    “You’re joking.” I laughed harshly. “You have to be.”
    “I am not,” he replied. His eyes glittered with something I couldn’t quite name, something that made bile rise in my throat. I stared at him for a full minute, rage and disbelief churning inside me. My hands clenched into fists again, but there was nothing close enough to punch. Except his face.
    “Colt could have died. Summer did die, or have you forgotten?” Her ring was a burning ember in my pocket. “And Mom.” I’d never really known her. She’d taken off when I was young to find some mythical beast in the mountains of Tibet. She’d never made it home.
    “I haven’t forgotten.” He frowned. “You’ll have to convince Justine not to be afraid. She’s a good fighter—she can handle the Trials.”
    “She’s not afraid for herself,” I shot back. “She doesn’t want you to claim Ariel next. Dad, this has to stop.”
    “It can’t.” He was calm, almost robotic.
    “It has to,” I insisted. “Let it go, before you get us all killed!”
    “The Cabal doesn’t let you walk away, son. Once Cabal, always Cabal.” He grabbed the back of my neck. “And I’ve worked too hard to let my collection go. It’s my life’s work, and it means something.”
    I broke his hold, stepping back. “You’re losing it. And you can’t seriously put your trophy room above the lives of my friends.” I wouldn’t let Summer’s death be another casualty of his greed.
    “You’d rather forget?”
    I thought of my aunt and the way she sang nonsense to herself. She’d never been able to complete her Trials. She’d tried three times and failed three times and then the Cabal administered the spell to wipe her memory. It had gone wrong, as it sometimes did. Now she barely remembered her own name. Everything was about keeping Cabal secrets and keeping the creatures contained. If they got loose, we’d all be discovered.
    “That’s the only way to break with the Cabal. And it’s no guarantee. Plus, consider this—without us, the monsters win,” he said. “The hiker they found last week? You know it wasn’t a bear. We control the bestiary or it controls us. It’s that simple.”
    And monsters called to monsters. Between the wards and the creatures, Dad’s bestiary reeked of magic. It lured other beasts to the castle. Even if we shut the bestiary down, which I’d wanted to do since Summer died, the magic would linger. Dad was right about one thing. Walking away wasn’t an option.
    I thought of the broken wards. That hiker wasn’t the first to be attacked. Anyone might be next. Even Kia, and she was innocent in all this. I wouldn’t let the Cabal get her killed just because she had the bad luck to live in my father’s house.
    So I’d do what needed to be done.
    “I guess you got your wish,” I said. “You’re turning me into one of them.”
    “Cabal? Good, they’re survivors.”
    “No, Dad,” I said quietly. “You’re turning me into one of the monsters.”

Chapter Thirteen
    Kia
    “Today sucks.” Sloane fell into step beside me in the hall outside the cafeteria. She wore a pink lily behind her left ear, blowing matching pink bubbles with her chewing gum.
    “What?” I said stupidly. It was really hard to concentrate. I was trying to decide if I believed in werewolves.
    And if I was living with one.
    Oblivious, Sloane licked chocolate shavings off her thumb. “Did you hear about Colt?”
    “No, what?”
    “He fell out of a tree and broke his back. He might not walk again.”
    I