Chapter 236: The Evil Father
Moana
“Hello, Moana.” Michael’s harsh voice rang so loudly in my skull that I winced and staggered backwards a little.
My eyes widened as I looked down and saw what he was holding so tightly in his hand: the Golden Knife. The knife that was going to kill me. The knife that I felt plunge into my chest over and over again in my visions.
“M-Michael,” I said, taking another step back, “what are you doing? W-Why do you have that knife?”
Michael slowly took another step toward me. I could see the droplets of rain sliding down the blade of the golden knife in Michael’s hand and the droplets falling off of the sharp, curved tip.
“M-Michael?” I repeated as he continued to approach. My eyes searched wildly for a way to escape, but there was no way around him — not without being able to see more than a few feet in front of me. I didn’t know if anyone else was with him, or what would happen to me if I ran into the mist blindly.
Michael sighed. He lifted the knife up and inspected it in the light, turning it this way and that. I could see how the golden blade glinted, how it sparkled from the rain falling on it. Everything from the wolf head on the handle to the way that the blade curved slightly was exactly the way it looked in my visions.
“I don’t particularly want to kill you, you know,” Michael said, wiping the water off of the blade with his sleeve.
I shook my head. “You don’t have to,” I whimpered. “We can both walk away from here. If you want me to leave your family alone, then I will. I’ll do whatever you want, so long as my baby is safe.”
For a few long moments, Michael just stared at me with his glowing eyes that pierced through the rain and the mist between us. I pleaded with him with my own eyes to just let me go, and all the while I begged my wolf to do something… Anything.
“If Edrick isn’t coming, then we need to shift,” I thought to my wolf.
“I’m trying as hard as I can, Moana,” she replied, sounding just as panicked as I felt. “But it’s too hard. I feel… Stuck.”
“Keep trying!”
Michael took another step toward me, and I felt my heart get caught in my throat. I took another step backwards, but when I glanced over my shoulder I could see the edge of the cliff now as the wind blew the mist around, and I could see that I was dangerously close to the edge.
If there was no other way out… I wondered if I should just jump. Take my death into my own hands, and at least rob Michael of the satisfaction of killing me himself.
“I don’t give a damn about your baby,” Michael growled. “I have to kill you, just like I killed your parents. I should have killed you first, before they had the chance to hide you.”
My eyes widened. “M-My parents?” I whispered. All this time… They left me on the doorstep of the orphanage because they were trying to save me; not because they were ashamed of me. They knew about my true nature, so they did their best by hiding me amongst humans.
Michael chuckled. “What, you still didn’t figure it out?” he asked. “I’ll admit, I didn’t realize who you were the first couple of times we met. I thought you were just a human toy of my son’s, another woman who trapped him with the bastard child in your belly so that you could get rich quick. But I was wrong.”
I shook my head. “But why?” I asked. “Why is it so important to you to kill the Golden Wolf? You would have killed me as a baby to achieve your goal? You willingly left a child as an orphan? And now you’re going to kill a pregnant woman? Why?”
For a long time, Michael didn’t answer. I felt my entire body start to shake as I became filled with an inexplicable rage. “Why?!” I demanded. My voice screamed out like a banshee, echoing across the cliff and landing on Michael. He almost looked taken aback by my rage.
But he only laughed.
“You would never understand,” he said. “Some of us actually have a lot to lose. A good-for-nothing moron such as yourself would never understand the implications behind the Golden Wolf’s existence. Besides… By you and your baby dying now, you’ll be saving generations of pain. The Golden Wolf will always be hunted, and the gene for it is in your blood. If I cut off the bloodline now…”
I felt sick, sicker than I felt before. My lip quivered as I spoke. “You’re disgusting and vile,” I growled, feeling myself gain strength and confidence. If I was going to die now, then I would go with dignity. “What sort of a monster wipes out the entire bloodline of a creature that only exists to bring peace?”
Once again, Edrick’s evil father laughed and took another step toward me. “You know nothing about peace,” he said, his voice so low I could hardly hear it over the sound of the wind and the rain.
I felt my stomach lurch. “Edrick!!” I screamed again, hoping beyond hope that he would be close enough to hear me, and he would know that I needed him now. I continued to push Mina to shift, but her progress was pretty much stagnant by now.
“My son can’t hear you, you dumb w***e,” Michael chided.
I shook my head and scowled. I took one more step back and felt the unmistakable feeling of the rocks on the edge of the cliff crunching under my feet. I felt something give way, and heard the sound of a few small rocks tumbling down into the abyss.
“He’ll know that it was you,” I snarled. “He’ll come for you, and when he does, you’ll wish that you were dead.”
Michael simply shrugged. “You don’t know my son like I do. Above all else, he loves nothing but the money, the luxuries that our status has afforded him. I can guarantee that he’ll take it any day over a single woman such as yourself.”
“You’re wrong,” I growled. “You don’t know him at all.”
“Besides…” Michael went on undisturbed, as though he didn’t even hear what I said. “No one will ever know that I was even here. When — or rather, if — they find your body someday at the bottom of this mountain, they’ll think that you fell. Hell, maybe they’ll think that you jumped. It doesn’t matter to me. No one would ever trace it back to me.”
“Just like how they didn’t trace the death of Ethan’s mother back to you?” I asked.
Michael’s eyes widened ever so slightly. It was only a split second, but during that split second I knew that I struck a chord with him.
“Don’t speak on things you know nothing about.”
Michael took another step forward. There was nothing I could do at this point… I didn’t know where Edrick was, or if he even knew that I was missing yet. I had nowhere to run, no way to fight back or protect myself.
All I could do was shut my eyes and pray for my wolf to finally shift.
And if she couldn’t do it… Then I would have to jump.
