The Rider's Truth.

Prepare

Unedited. 

Chapter 12 - Prepare. 

There was an immediate, thundering round of protest once those words left my mother's lips. I had never seen a group of people rile so quickly as they did then, a haphazard line forming around me as if their bodies could defend me from her words alone.

"Are you fecking serious?" Jamie's outraged roar sounded the loudest as she clenched thick fists. "Are you serious?"

Numbness filtered through me, my head tilting to the side as I considered it. Everything around me was strangely muffled while blood thundered in my ears. There was no room for hurt; the same bitterness that swallowed me before when she acted like this was gone. Instead, her words left only an ache that I could easily squash.

Miranda faced off against Jamie, her eyes narrowing coldly. "Your language is a disgrace."

"Your attitude is a disgrace," Dem spat in disgust. "Why you continue to darken our door is a mystery when we have made it very clear that you are to come nowhere near Neely again."

"You have made that very clear." She sniffed. "I am here for Jenna. She has not spoken to me in weeks and I knew this place is turning her against me. I thought by her silence, that there was something wrong."

Miranda examined Jenna closely, sparing me not another glance. Her mouth twisted in disapproval at Jenna's attire, but I knew she was thinking of ways to pull Jenna back under her wing and turn her back to how she wanted her to be.

"Are you blind?" Peter asked gruffly. "You look at Neely and you aren't immediately concerned?"

Mam glanced up at him before grudgingly looking to me. I stared boldly back at her, seeing in her expression that she knew there was something wrong, but she was too prideful to say anything.

"Abner said that you went away to find yourself." She sniffed. "You lost your baby fat – which is an achievement, but what did you do to your hair? It was one of your only interesting features."

Dark amusement stirred in the pits of my stomach, while everyone around me grew angrier. My smile visibly unsettled her.

"A demon cut my hair forcibly from my head while I struggled to fight off the drug they had injected me with. As for my diet? You could see it was lacking."

"Why do you always have to be so dramatic..." She bit back her hiss, her eyes flashing in annoyance. "Woah is me."

Abner slid in between my mother and I, before Nikki laid a hand on his arm. Both were obviously furious and Nikki struggled to show me a kind smile before she turned her glare back to Miranda.

"I told you that she was gone and we were going to find her." Abner bit out harshly. "You hung up and never contacted me again. Not when I rang you over and over. "

"It got lost in translation." Miranda snarled. "And what kind of parent are you? Neely was never harmed in the years that she was under my care and yet, months under yours and she is kidnapped by demons."

The air tightened as the Vidalin rose fully, eyes gleaming like pools of liquid fire. His rage cut through the rife tension, sending people several steps backwards and clearing a path for the both of us towards Miranda. In his fervour, his anger felt terrible and ancient. Claws pressed into the earth, cutting chunks in the humming earth while a heavy, barbed tail swung behind him.

I watched Mam flinch and the blood drained from his face. Her eyes shifted to me momentarily, before her chin set stubbornly.

"Control your lizard, Neely."