Total pages in book: 56
Estimated words: 52864 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 264(@200wpm)___ 211(@250wpm)___ 176(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 52864 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 264(@200wpm)___ 211(@250wpm)___ 176(@300wpm)
“Are you all right? Have you eaten something you should not have? Because I have already told you what’s coming. I cannot stop it.”
“Maybe you can’t, but if the world knows what’s about to happen, the people will fight back.” Or, at the very least, something good would rise from the ashes if people were prepared. It was like I said before, evil just couldn’t get rid of us.
He frowned, unconvinced. “The world will not believe you, Piper. And even if they did, and the masses pushed back, it only resolves the Ten Club problem temporarily. Then there are the Seers.”
“Mia said she’d take care of them.”
“Who the hell is Mia?”
Shit. I had to tell him, but he wasn’t going to like it. Draco would see the fact I’d hidden something from him as a massive betrayal.
Once again, I was faced with choosing. Did I put my trust in Draco or in a woman I’d never met before but who seemed to know what the hell she was talking about?
“Are you going to answer me, Piper? Who the hell is Mia?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
I believed in good. I always had. And while it was also my weakness, as Conni correctly pointed out, it also kept me from falling—into sadness, a perma-rage, or into a life I wasn’t proud of.
Even now, after all the heartache I’d been through with Leo, I could honestly say that my instincts to bet on good hadn’t wavered.
Yes, I’d wasted over two years of my life with Leo. Yes, he’d cheated, and it hurt. But I did not waste my entire life on him. I did not marry, have children, or end up broken. In short, I took a detour, and then the universe was set right again.
Because evil never wins. It was the one truth throughout history. Sometimes evil took power, but it never lasted, just like it never wiped out good.
We are still here.
And as hard as the Stalins and Hitlers of the world tried, no matter what sort of friendly masks they wore or how righteously they packaged their same old hateful ideas, it never worked out in the long run.
It wasn’t a question of faith, class, gender, or even education. Human brains were biologically wired to sniff out threats. We were the masters of seeing patterns, and when those patterns added up to something that didn’t smell right, our defenses went up. We took notice. The tipping point.
Eventually, self-determination took over—the need to not simply survive, but to live a free, safe, happy life. A good life. That was the human race’s default position. It was why for thousands of years those with bad intentions couldn’t wipe us out. We would only allow ourselves to live in an unnatural state of misery for so long.
So now I faced a choice: bet on Draco, or bet on Mia.
I mentally placed my chips. I bet on good.
“I’ll tell you about Mia, but first you have to listen to me.” I sat next to Draco on the sofa in the living room. He’d ditched the glass and was now drinking straight from the bottle.
“Makes no difference what I do, Piper. I already told you that.”
“Yes, it does. Because Ten Club’s been around forever just like the Seers. So why aren’t they in charge yet?” I shook a finger at his face. “It’s because they can’t beat us all. They couldn’t win when the world was made up of ten thousand people, two million, or seven billion. We will always outnumber them.”
“We who? Because I am the them you speak of.”
“No, you’re not. And you have all the power in the world. Use it to show everyone what’s waiting. We’ll go on social media. You’ll use your power to make the news channels report the truth for once. It’s the only way to stop it now, Draco. I know it is.”
He took another swig.
I got up and grabbed the bottle. “Stop that! This is important.”
“You think I do not know that?” He snatched the scotch back, his eyes lingering on my breasts for a moment. It wasn’t the first time I’d caught him eyeing me like that, and I’d been looking at him, too.
I ignored how that made me feel—libidinous—and took the bottle back again. “You’re not listening. This isn’t over.”
“And you are in denial.”
“Fine! Whatever. But like you told King, there’s no harm in trying. If I’m wrong, then I’m wrong. Nothing changes. But if I’m right, then we win.” I handed him back his bottle. “Please, I am begging you. Just try. There’s nothing to lose.”
He shook his head. “I will do what you’re asking, but first, tell me who Mia is. You’ve been avoiding her in your thoughts and lying to me since this morning. Why?”
And I hated myself for holding out, but I’d made my choice. I bet on good. And that meant being honest.