Free Family (Insanity Book 7) by Cameron Jace Page A

reaching for the rifle the Pillar keeps near the couch and point it at him. “Tell me the truth!”
    “Alice?” the Pillar says cautiously. “Don’t do anything stupid.”
    “Yeah?” I ready the trigger and aim. “Aren’t you the one with fourteen lives? Why would you be scared if I shoot?”
    “Because this rifle has Bandersnatch teeth for bullets.” He looks really worried.
    “So?” Tom Truckle’s nose joins in again. “Are you saying you’re not immune to those bullets?”
    The Pillar dismisses him for the third time, keeping eyes on me.
    “My God,” I say with a smile on my face. “So it’s true. Your fourteen lives aren’t immune to Bandersnatch bullets.”
    The Pillar nods, and in a rare moment, looks defeated.
    “Then I’m going to shoot you, if you don’t tell me what you know about Him.”
     

Chapter 33
    The Radcliffe Asylum
     
    “All right.” The Pillar gives up, hands in the air. “What do you want me to tell you.”
    “Who are my real biological parents? You? Fabiola?”
    “I. Don’t. Know.” The Pillar grits his teeth.
    “Lying again.”
    “Do you think I’d risk my life not telling you, if I knew?” the Pillar says. “Those bullets will drop me dead, and I don’t know of any magic or rituals to bring me back to life from them.”
    “So what do you know?”
    “Ask me and I’ll try my best.”
    “Who are you?”
    “Carter Chrysalis Cocoon Pillar.”
    “Are you Him?”
    The Pillar purses his lips. It’s as if he’s struggling with telling me the truth, trying to swallow it deep into the belly of the whale of secrets he is.
    “Tell me!” I shout, my rifle’s tip touching his chest.
    The Pillar looks sideways.
    “I will not hesitate shooting you.”
    “I know,” he says softly.
    “Then tell me!” I shout, but then follow my furiousness with a weakened. “Please.”
    “I am.” The Pillar looks back at me.
    Unconsciously, I lower the rifle. I think the shock is too great to bear. I think I still hoped the Pillar wasn’t who I should have known he was from the first day I suspected his intentions.
    “You are?” Tom says. He too, seems surprised, though he’d endorsed the idea from the beginning.
    “Tell me more,” I say in a fractured voice.
    “Ask me and I will answer you.” The Pillar evades my eyes.
    “Did I join Black Chess because of you?” I ask.
    “Yes.”
    “Did you teach me how kill and hurt people in Wonderland?”
    “Yes.”
    “How many did we hurt?”
    “Can’t remember.”
    “Did I do it to get closer to you, to find your weakness?”
    “Yes.”
    “Did you expose me?”
    “At some point, yes.”
    “How did you find out?”
    “I found out from day one, and I played you.”
     

Chapter 34
     
    My lips are trembling, but I have so many questions. “So I killed all those innocent people for nothing? I never found out your weakness?”
    “You shouldn’t have tried to fight fire with fire. It’s your fault, not mine.”
    “Why did you come back for me in this modern world then?”
    “I needed to know something.”
    “The Six Keys.”
    “Something like that.”
    “Don’t play games with me or I’ll shoot.”
    “I find that hard to believe.” The Pillar’s eyes finally find mine.
    “Because you, in some twisted way, are my biological father, right? What did you do? Leave me as child? Throw me out in the streets? Is that why I hate you so much? Is that why I’ve decided to rid the world of you in Wonderland?”
    The Pillar’s breathing seems unstable. I can hardly tell what he is thinking. Every moment of silence slices through my soul like a sharp knife that cuts but never kills.
    “I don’t think you can kill me, because deep inside you know we’ve always been together, doing the things we did,” the Pillar says. “We have a bond, Alice. We can do great things.”
    “Great things?” I’m too offended by his suggestion that I point my rifle at him again, my forefinger trembling with an unmatched desire to shoot