Mrs. Castell's voice is already halfway to the moon and clawing for the stars by the time Heidi quietly backs away from the wreckage of the dining room. She swears the woman's shrieks could peel wallpaper off the walls if she kept going another five minutes.
Mrs. Castell paces in a wild loop between the table and the doorway, her heels clicking like a countdown to destruction. "Ungrateful! Absolutely ungrateful! Both of them! I should have left them for a better family when I had the chance! I give Lucan everything, everything, and that's how he repays me? Walking out? Running after that— that… Eli boy like a lovesick mutt?"
Sierra, who is still blotchy from crying, nods aggressively. "Mom, he's delusional. They both are. Dad and Lucan. Let them go. They'll regret it. Just wait and watch how they'll come crawling back to us."
