Chapter 68 I Won't Keep Paying For Your Madness
Liam's POV
Half a month ago, the werewolf council had raided our family estate and found the blood-draining array in the basement—massive dark magic circles carved into stone that Mom and Dad had used to transfer every injury Vanessa suffered, every illness, every stroke of bad luck onto Elara for eighteen years, using her as a living curse container while my sister stayed healthy and whole.
Mom and Dad were sentenced to life imprisonment within hours of the discovery. The trial had been swift and merciless, their pleas falling on deaf ears as the evidence mounted against them.
Vanessa and I were stripped of the Blackwood name, our status reduced to the lowest ranking members of Shadowveil Pack, and the mansion we'd grown up in was seized by the council. We were given two hours to pack what we could carry before being escorted to this leaking, moldy shack at the edge of pack territory where the floorboards were warped and water stains covered the walls.
The past two weeks had shown me exactly how far my sister had fallen from reality. Vanessa refused to accept what had happened, refused to acknowledge that our parents' crimes were real and deserved punishment, and instead spent her days consumed by thoughts of revenge against Elara, plotting ways to hurt the girl who'd already suffered more than anyone should have to endure.
The pack members who used to bow and scrape before us now openly mocked her when she walked past, their laughter following her like a shadow she couldn't escape, and instead of learning humility or showing any hint of remorse, she only grew more vicious and reckless.
Three days ago, she'd taken it too far in a way that had cost me years of my life. I'd been at the lumber mill, working my mandatory twelve-hour shift hauling logs and operating dangerous machinery for wages that barely covered our food, when I got the call that made my blood run cold.
Vanessa had gotten behind the wheel of our battered old car in a fit of rage and deliberately run down a young wolf who'd made a snide comment about our fall from grace, sending him to the hospital with a shattered leg and internal injuries that would take weeks to heal even with our accelerated werewolf recovery.
The compensation payment had been astronomical, more money than I could earn in six months of backbreaking labor. I'd signed an extension to my forced labor contract on the spot without hesitation, adding another three years to the ten I'd already committed to, because it was the only way to keep the council from exiling Vanessa entirely, from throwing her out of pack territory to fend for herself as a rogue with no protection and no future.
My hands had been shaking as I put my signature on that document, knowing I was selling more of my life to pay for her crimes, but what choice did I have when she was my sister and I couldn't just abandon her to die alone in the wilderness?
My hands were covered in fresh cuts and splinters from today's work, my shoulders aching from hours of lifting loads that would have been split between three wolves in any reasonable workplace, but the physical pain was nothing compared to watching my sister destroy herself and taking me down with her in the process.
"Look at this," I growled, my voice rough with anger and desperation as I shoved her sleeve up to expose the full extent of the damage she refused to acknowledge. "You see these marks? These black and purple things crawling across your skin like living nightmares? This is what happens when you build your entire existence on stolen life force. This is the price of using Elara as your personal curse container for eighteen years."
The bruises pulsed under my grip like they had their own heartbeat, responding to my touch with sickening warmth that made my stomach turn. They looked like thorny vines beneath her skin, dark and twisted and spreading further each day as the magic that had sustained her for so long turned rabid and vicious without its source, punishing her body for the destruction of the array that had kept her artificially healthy.
"You think I don't know what Mom and Dad did?" I continued, my grip tightening as she tried to pull away from me. "Every injury you ever had, every fever, every bad grade or failed spell or moment of bad luck got transferred to an innocent child who'd done nothing to deserve it. You were healthy and strong because she was weak and suffering under the weight of curses that should have been yours. You had everything because she had nothing. And now that the array is broken, now that you can't steal from her anymore, your body is finally experiencing what it should have all along."
I released her arm with enough force that she stumbled backward, catching herself on the edge of the mattress. "You want to know why I won't help you get revenge on Elara? Because she didn't steal anything from you, Vanessa. Nothing you had was ever really yours to begin with. That health, that strength, that perfect life you remember so fondly was built on her suffering like a mansion built on bones. Every good day you experienced came at the cost of her agony, every moment of happiness you felt was paid for with her tears and pain."
She opened her mouth to protest, to throw out another accusation or justification or excuse, but I cut her off with a sharp gesture that made her flinch.
"Do you think I want to be here?" I demanded, my voice rising as weeks of suppressed frustration poured out. "Do you think I enjoy working twelve hours a day at jobs that will probably cripple me before I'm thirty, coming home with hands full of splinters and a back that feels like it's breaking? I signed a ten-year forced labor contract to keep the council from exiling you completely. Ten years of my life, gone in an instant, just so you could have a roof over your head and food in your stomach instead of dying alone in the wilderness as a rogue with no pack and no protection."
The words hung in the air between us, heavy and final. I could see the impact of them hitting her, the way her face went pale except for two spots of color high on her cheeks that could have been shame or rage or some twisted combination of both.
"Everything you still have," I said, my voice dropping to barely above a whisper but losing none of its intensity, "this room, these meals, the fact that you're still technically part of this pack and not cast out to fend for yourself—I bought all of that with my freedom. I'm paying for your crimes with my blood and sweat and years of my life that I'll never get back, years I could have spent building something for myself instead of cleaning up your messes."
I took a step backward, suddenly feeling more tired than I'd ever been in my entire existence. "If you keep going down this path," I said, my words measured and deliberate, "if you keep trying to hurt Elara, keep causing trouble, keep refusing to accept reality and take responsibility for what our family did to her, then next time I won't save you. I can't keep sacrificing everything to protect you from the consequences of your own actions. I won't keep paying for your madness with pieces of my soul until there's nothing left of me but an empty shell working myself to death for someone who refuses to change."
Vanessa stood frozen in place, her mouth slightly open and her arms wrapped around herself like she could hold together the pieces of her shattered world through sheer force of will.
I turned away from her without waiting for a response, knowing that anything she said right now would just be more denial, more blame shifting, more refusal to face the truth of what our family had done.
My hand closed around the doorknob, the cheap metal cold against my palm as I pulled the door open and stepped into the dark hallway beyond, letting it click shut behind me with a finality that seemed to echo through the entire house.