Chapter 140

Erin’s POV

I stumbled backward, staring up at the man I thought was my partner and best friend. He was the one guy I thought I could always count on. He was someone I thought I could trust.

But as he stood before me, I saw nothing more than a stranger.

“I don’t understand,” I heard my voice coming out as hollow and unfamiliar. “You?”

“I never wanted it to come to this, Erin. I never wanted you to find out like this. But I didn’t have a choice. I needed to get rid of Gavin and the only way to do that was to team up with the Slayer organization.”

I took a step away, my nerves rising in my stomach.

“Why have you been lying?” I managed to say, my heart pounding violently in my chest. “How have you been lying?”

“The first time we met, wasn’t exactly the first time we met,” he began explaining. “When I first saw you, it was your graduation day. I was the photographer and I found you to be absolutely stunning. Your only flaw was that jock boy you kept by your side.”

He was talking about Gavin.

“You saw me back then?” I asked dumbfounded. “But that was before…everything.”

“Yes, it was,” Henry confirmed. “Who do you think convinced your father to make Gavin break up with you?”

“You used your abilities…” I gasped, taking another step away from him. “You took away all the good things he knew about Gavin and replaced them with only bad. That was you the entire time? How could you do that to me?”

“I did that FOR you, Erin. He was only going to hold you back. Only I saw your true potential; way before you even got your powers. I was there for you when everything you knew and loved was ripped from you.”

“You were the reason it was all ripped from me,” I cried to him. “It’s always been because of you. You were behind everything. How could I have been so stupid.”

“I feel awful that you had to get hurt in order to get to where you are, but I don’t regret anything because I know I did it out of love.”

“You don’t feel anything,” I said through my teeth. I had never been this angry in my life. I wanted to rip his throat out, but for whatever reason, Emily was holding me back. “You were nothing but selfish.”

“That isn’t fair; everything I did was for you, Erin—”

“You killed my parents! How is that for me, Henry?!”

“You take after your father when it comes to your strengths and abilities. I might have been able to manipulate his mind into hating Gavin and getting you to break up with him, but he was so strong, his mind kept trying to get him to remember. He would get flashes of memory that would come to him often and he was a step closer to figuring everything out. Right when he was about to tell you, I got my organization and some rogues to attack.”

A growl emerged through my throat, and I wanted to shift, but Emily was still resistant to me.

“Not yet…” she kept murmuring and I had to calm myself down.

I could hear the Killers raiding the convention. Gavin had frozen time, so there wasn’t much of a commotion. But the Killers were ransacking the place on Jessie’s orders.

I knew Gavin was busy trying to put a stop to them, but I still needed to know how Henry became a member of the Moonshadow organization.

“How did Theo not know that you were the leader of the Killers? How did you get it past us all?”

“I used my abilities to convince Theo to let me into the Moonshadow. I made him forget all the wrong I had done and replaced his memories with more noble ones. I joined the organization a few months before I met you. I wanted into the organization so I could exploit their secrets and shut them down once and for all.”

I felt completely numb at his words; this whole time Theo had been under the manipulation of Henry’s powers, and he didn’t know about it.

“So, you didn’t do all of this because you were in love with me?” I asked, barely audible. “You did this to exploit the organization?”

“You were nothing more than a consolation prize. I’ve been sharing everything I found out with the Killer from the very first day I joined this organization. I reported everything to my partner, Judy.”

“Judy was your partner?”

This was far too much information, and the overload of details was making me want to pass out. Or maybe it was this weird sickness that I had.

I took a step toward him because I wanted to lunge at him; I wanted to fight him and defeat him once and for all. There was no way I was going to let him get away with this.

But just as I stepped closer to him, I grew incredibly dizzy, and I thought I was going to fall over.

“Erin!” He said, rushing toward me and wrapping his arms around me before I fell over.

“Don’t touch me!” I hissed to him, shoving him away.

Emily nearly escaped from me right then and there as soon as his hands landed on my body. She didn’t want him anywhere near me and she was willing to rip him to shreds if he got nearby.

“We could have had an amazing life together, Erin. I loved you before you even had your powers and I wanted to treat you like the queen you are. But I couldn’t risk blowing my identity and I couldn’t pursue you. But after your parents died, and you got your abilities, I made Theo recruit you to the organization.”

That nauseous feeling returned, and my breathing grew shallow.

“It’s been a setup this entire time. My recruitment into the organization was because of your manipulation.”

“Do you remember what I told you when I first recruited you? When we first met officially?” He asked, eyeing me carefully.

I thought about it as tears flooded my eyes and then I nodded.

“That the organization is a great place to go if I have nothing left and still want to make a difference,” I recited his exact words to me that convinced me to join the Moonshadow.

“And that’s exactly what you did. You made a difference, and it was because I pushed you in this direction,” Henry said, reaching his hand out to me. “I thought if we worked together long enough, you would eventually fall in love with me, and you’d trust me more than anyone. But you never stopped loving Gavin.”

“You’re sick, Henry,” I growled. “You are selfish, and you are sick.”

“When I teamed up with Jessie, I thought we had an understanding that you don’t get hurt. But I didn’t know her true motive. But there’s nothing I can do about it now. She’s far too powerful. I tried to get you to stay away but you were way too stubborn.”

“I will never stop fighting to defeat you and Jessie,” I said in a low and threatening tone; I felt fire burning in my eyes as I stared at him.

I saw a dark haze fall over Henry’s eyes; a look I had never seen before. It sent a chill down my spine and made me tremble.

Just as he was about to say something, Theo burst through the doors of the convention, and he brought along hundreds of others from the organization. They came through windows, the ceiling, the doors.

The entire convention was flooded with those from the Moonshadow organization.

As I looked over at Henry, I saw that he was gone.

My heart fell into my stomach.

Just as I turned around, Jessie stood before me.

She spoke in a low and threatening tone, “I’m going to kill you for what you did to my father.”