Chapter 41 Good Luck With The Curse

Chapter 41 Good Luck With The Curse
Elara's POV

"Wasn't it you people who asked me to come?" I said, meeting Isabella's hostile glare with complete indifference as I leaned against the doorframe.

"Five million dollars," I said clearly, watching their faces register shock. "US dollars, wire transfer, completed before I lift a finger. That's my price."

Isabella's face went from red to purple as she launched into a tirade. "After we took you in and gave you a home, you want to extort us like some criminal?!"

I let her finish her entire rant without interrupting. "First, you didn't do those things out of kindness. You wanted access to my abilities and thought you could control me. Second, I'm not your family, so drop the guilt trip because it won't work anymore."

Reginald stepped forward from the corner where he'd been standing. "What guarantee do we have that you can actually solve this?"

I pulled out my phone and checked the time with deliberate casualness. "Three minutes to decide. After that, I leave and you deal with your haunted daughter alone."

"You can't just—" Isabella started.

"Yes, I can," I cut her off without looking up.

Vanessa let out a sound between a sob and a scream, her body convulsing as she pressed both hands to her head like she could physically hold herself together. "Mom, Dad, please! Just pay her! I can't take this anymore!"

Liam moved closer to the bed, his expression carefully neutral. "Elara, surely we can work something out. We're still family. Family helps each other without demanding payment."

I turned to face him fully. "I'm going to say this once. I am not your family. You have two minutes and thirty seconds left."

Vanessa screamed, a high-pitched sound. "It's here! Please, please make it stop!"

Isabella pulled out her phone with shaking hands that made her fumble the device twice before she managed to unlock it, looking at Reginald who gave a single tight nod of agreement.

"Fine," Isabella spat, her fingers moving frantically across the screen. "Five million. But you fix this completely, do you understand?"

I watched the notification appear on my phone before slipping it away and pulling out a crystal vial filled with liquid that pulsed with faint silver light. "Let me be clear. I can weaken the connection between Vanessa and the wraith, reducing attack frequency. But I cannot destroy the spirit completely because it's tied to unfinished business and hatred that goes beyond magical intervention."

Vanessa's face crumpled and fresh tears streamed down her cheeks. "You took five million and can't even fix it?!"

"I can help. What I cannot do is erase murder consequences." I set the vial on the bedside table and pulled out the Truth Crystal. "Before I do anything, you tell the truth about what you did to Mia. All of it, spoken while holding this crystal."

Vanessa shook her head frantically, eyes darting between her family members like a trapped animal looking for escape. "No! You'll record it and use it against me!"

I pulled out my phone and tossed it onto the couch across the room, the device landing with a soft thump against the cushions. "No recording devices. Your family can leave if you want privacy."

I let a cold smile curve my lips as I looked at Isabella and Reginald, seeing confusion and growing horror dawn on their faces. "She doesn't want you to know what twisted, ugly thing lives behind that pretty face. She doesn't want you to see the real Vanessa hiding under all those tears and innocent smiles."

"Vanessa, what is she talking about?" Liam asked, his voice gone quiet and uncertain.

Vanessa tried to speak but only managed a choked sob, her hands clutching at the blankets. "Please just go. I'll tell her everything, just don't make me say it in front of you."

I cut in with deliberate cruelty. "One minute. Either they leave or I do."

Vanessa broke, shoving at her mother with surprising strength that made Isabella stumble backward. "Get out!"

Reginald's face had gone gray but he put a hand on Isabella's shoulder and guided her toward the door, his expression set in grim lines that suggested he'd already guessed some of what his daughter was about to confess. Liam followed after one last uncertain look at Vanessa, and then the door clicked shut.

I held out the Truth Crystal and waited until Vanessa's shaking fingers closed around it, feeling the pulse of magic activate as the crystal bonded with her energy signature. "Start talking."

Vanessa took a deep, shuddering breath that rattled in her chest. "It was because of Ethan. My boyfriend. When he made his relationship with Mia public, I felt so humiliated, so angry that she'd taken him from me."

The crystal pulsed with soft white light, confirming truth.

"I spread rumors about her sleeping around, told everyone she was sleeping with professors for grades. I 'accidentally' spilled boiling coffee on her arm in the cafeteria and watched her skin blister. I locked her in the storage room overnight in winter and listened to her bang on the door until her hands bled. I did it all because I was jealous, because I hated that Ethan chose her over me."

Another pulse of white light, brighter this time, and I watched Vanessa's shoulders drop slightly as if each truth spoken lifted some invisible weight.

"On the rooftop that day, I saw she was pregnant and I just—I lost it completely. I kicked her in the stomach because I wanted to destroy it, wanted to ruin her and that bastard child she was carrying."

With each confession, the crystal's light grew brighter and I watched more of the fear drain from Vanessa's face, as if speaking the truth was physically purging something toxic from her system. But when she opened her mouth to say "I didn't mean to kill her," the crystal let out a sharp, discordant buzz that made her flinch violently.

She tried again, voice shaking with desperation. "I didn't intend for her to die—" The buzz came again, louder and more insistent, cutting through her lie.

Vanessa's face crumpled as she realized she couldn't lie, not while holding a crystal that forced truth from the deepest parts of her soul. "I wanted her gone," she finally whispered, raw and honest in a way she'd probably never been before. "I wanted her and that baby erased from existence so Ethan would come back to me and everything would go back to the way it was."

The crystal went silent, glowing pure white in her trembling palm.

I reached out and took the crystal from her hands, slipping it back into my bag without comment. The confession was exactly what I'd expected—petty jealousy escalated to premeditated murder, wrapped in layers of self-deception that Vanessa had been telling herself for two years.

Vanessa's voice rose in panic as she grabbed at my sleeve. "And the nightmares, the hallucinations, the accidents—everyone around me keeps getting hurt! My mom fell and cracked her skull, Dad's car got hit by that truck, the nurse broke her wrist just taking my vitals! You have to fix all of it!"

The door burst open and Isabella rushed back in with Reginald and Liam behind her. "You took five million just for the wraith?" Isabella demanded, jabbing a finger at me. "What about everything else happening to our family?"

I turned to face them with one eyebrow raised, my expression completely calm. "Those aren't from the wraith. That's backlash from the Blood Siphon Array being destroyed."

The color drained from Reginald's face, leaving him looking almost as pale as his daughter. "What are you talking about?"

"The array that stole my life force for eighteen years," I said, my voice flat and clinical. "When it was destroyed, all that stolen vitality had to go somewhere. It's returning to its rightful owner, which means the people who benefited from the theft are now experiencing the consequences. Think of it as the universe collecting a debt with eighteen years of accumulated interest."

Vanessa let out a strangled scream, her hands flying up to clutch at her head. "Fix it! You have to fix it!"

Isabella's voice climbed toward hysteria, her composure finally cracking. "You're telling me we're all going to keep getting hurt? That this is just going to get worse and worse until what—we all die?!"

"You planned this theft for nearly two decades, built your health and success and everything you have on power that wasn't yours, and now you want to pay five million to make it all disappear?" I said with cold precision, watching their faces pale as the full implications sank in. "How beautifully optimistic of you to think consequences work that way."

Liam stepped forward, his expression shifting to that gentle, pleading look he'd always used when he wanted me to bend. "Elara, please. We know things between us have been difficult, but surely there's some way to work this out. We're still family, even if—"

"I'm going to say this one last time," I cut him off, my voice dropping to a tone that made him take an involuntary step back. "I am not your family. I am not your sister. We share no bonds of blood or affection or obligation. Whatever relationship you think we had ended the moment I walked out of that house and you did nothing to stop it."

I started toward the door but paused mid-step, my gaze sweeping across the three of them and noting all the evidence of their suffering—the bandages on Reginald's arm, the gauze wrapped around Isabella's head from her fall, the brace on Liam's wrist. "Though I suppose there is one way to mitigate the backlash effects."

Three pairs of desperate eyes locked onto me with sudden hope blooming across their faces.

"The curse backlash affects anyone connected by blood," I continued, watching Liam's face go pale as he looked down at his injured wrist with dawning understanding. "But there is a way to create some protection. I gave each of you moon-blessed talismans years ago. Silver pendants on leather cords with protective runes etched into the metal. Those can shield against curses and deflect misfortune."

Liam's hand went to his throat in an unconscious gesture, guilt and something that might have been regret flashing across his face. I could see in his eyes that he remembered the necklace clearly, remembered the night I'd given it to him with hands that shook from the effort of crafting something that powerful.

Reginald's expression hardened with immediate decision. "We need to go home right now and find those talismans."

"Those ugly things?" Isabella's voice dripped with disdain. "I threw mine away years ago. Who wants to wear cheap costume jewelry from a charity case?"

The room went very quiet. Reginald and Liam both turned to stare at Isabella with expressions I'd never seen them direct at her before—cold, calculating, and edged with anger. "You threw it away," Reginald repeated slowly.

"I don't remember where I put mine," Vanessa whispered.

"Well then you can use theirs," Isabella said, gesturing dismissively at Reginald and Liam. "They're men, they can handle a few accidents. Vanessa and I need the protection more because we're more delicate."

Reginald's jaw clenched hard enough that I could see the muscle jump. Liam's expression went completely blank, but his eyes when they met mine held a cold fury I'd never seen before.

I turned toward the door, my lips curving into a smile that held no warmth. "Good luck with the curse. I'm sure your loving family will take excellent care of each other."