揧ou don抰 deserve it and neither do I!?Karter shouted. 揑 don抰 want it anyway. I never did.?He looked down at the ground. 揑 just wanted my mom to be proud of me.?
揝he wasn抰，？Dre said. 揑 hope you know that.?
Marie eased her grip on Karter and he turned away from his uncle.
Persephone pushed Dre back. 揧ou抮e done talking.?
Dre raised an eyebrow. He was incredulous. 揧ou think you can tell me what to do??He drew his lips together and spit directly into Persephone抯 face. She broke his neck and tossed his lifeless body into the forest so hard it splintered the bough of an elm tree as it crashed through.
Persephone stood panting, her teeth bared, eyes wide.
揝eph,?Circe started, but Persephone shook her head and stomped away from us.
Circe sighed and bit her lip. 揕ook what these people have become.?She nodded toward Karter. 揕ook what they抮e willing to sacrifice to get to the Heart.?
揧抋ll aren抰 any better, are you??Karter asked through a mask of pain. 揌ow many family members have you sacrificed for that thing??
揝hut up,?Marie said angrily. 揧ou don抰 know what you抮e talking about. They抮e not hunting people down and murdering them.?
揟hey抮e still dead,?Karter said. 揂nd all for what? For nothing.?
揌e抯 right,?Circe said.
Marie and I both whipped our heads around to look at her.
She looked up, the full moon blazing in the nighttime sky. 揥e抳e lost too many. But no more. This is never going to be over if we don抰 get in there and get the last piece. We have to end this.?
I searched Karter抯 face for some trace of the guy I抎 shared so much with, the person I抎 trusted and laughed with and confided in. To my astonishment, I found something of the person I had found a strange and beautiful friendship with. Right there in his big brown eyes was the bumbling, awkward guy who loved horror movies and couldn抰 do much in the garden besides rake and sip lemonade. He was still in there.
He turned to me, his eyes pleading. 揃ri棓
揑桰 can抰 forgive you,?I said before he could finish. 揑 just can抰。？
His tears cut paths through the smears of blood on his cheeks. 揑 know. I抦 still sorry. I just need you to know that.?
In that moment all I could think of were the Fates. They抎 insinuated that we were all fated to follow a certain path. If that was true, then it meant Karter was meant to be there on Aeaea as the last members of his family treated him like he was expendable and left him alone in the world. It struck me as uniquely cruel.
揑抦 so sorry, Bri,?Karter said again.
I held my hands up and willed a cage of vines, none of them poisonous, to bind him. Coiling tendrils and wide leaves encapsulated every part of him until I could only see his eyes through the tangle of foliage.
揌e抯 not going anywhere,?I said. 揂nd we have something more important to do right now.?
Circe nodded in agreement and retrieved the two cages as Persephone gazed toward the walled enclosure. Something dark and unreadable passed over her face.
I went to Viv抯 body and took the vial of Living Elixir from her pocket, grasped Marie抯 hand, and approached the gate.
CHAPTER 21
If the gate guarding the entrance to the Poison Garden back home was a wicked grin, this one was an insidious smirk. The bars weren抰 straight up and down anymore but instead, tilted to the left and right like jagged broken teeth. The gaps were big enough to walk through. Maybe that had been what Dre and the others attempted to do. But how they hadn抰 managed to worry about the blue vines creeping their way across the bars didn抰 make sense. The audacity of the coral blooms paired with the blue trunks of the vines screamed danger. As we approached, my suspicions were confirmed as the air spilling down my throat turned icy. It took my breath away. Circe and Persephone both began to cough. Marie sucked in a breath and held it.
I angled my body to slide through a gap in the gate, and as I passed through, a coil of the deadly vine encircled my ankle and climbed up my leg, turning around my calf and gripping my thigh. The thorns drug across my jeans, then laid themselves flat.
揥hat is this??I asked.
Circe ran her hand over her forehead. 揑 think it抯 called Beast of Burden. I抳e never actually seen it in person.?
I let out a breath and pushed forward, helping Circe transfer the two cages into the interior of the walled structure. Marie came in after her and then Persephone. We stayed close to one another as we navigated a narrow pathway that followed the right angles of the interior wall. When we emerged into the inner space, we all stopped. I was dumbstruck. This garden was like the Poison Garden on steroids.
There were no mundane herbs, no quiet plants. The inner sanctum of the giant walled garden was in full bloom. There were no partitions there, only a big open space where the most poisonous plants I knew of grew straight from the ground. The air was made of ice梠f poison. Devil抯 Pet with offshoots the size of tree trunks slithered among the bushes of crimson brush. More tangles of Beast of Burden crowded the overgrown pathways between the earthen plots. Black hellebore, bloodroot, clusters of euphorbia, hemlock bushes the size of boulders, mandrake whose roots rose from beneath the rich soil like the appendages of a corpse. Poison ivy clung to every brick, and all of them seemed to wake from their long slumber as we entered.