Shepard leans in close to my face, and his breath is low and cold and angry in my ear. “You misunderstood me. I wasn’t asking you if you wanted to work for us. I was telling you that you’re going to.”
The sound of his voice mixed with the pungent odor of something sour curls the acid in my stomach.
“I will die before I do anything for you,” I say.
He cups my chin and jerks my face towards his.
“You misunderstand me again.” His voice softens. “I would love to suck every last drop of life from your body. I could live for a decade on that kind of power. But you see, it took us centuries to find someone like your mother.” He loosens his grip and slides his hand down to my throat, gently, like a caress. “No, no…” He circles his thumb over my skin. “You’re not getting off that easy.”
Tension and disgust seize every muscle in my body.
He rakes his fingers over my collarbone and drops his dark gaze to the floor. “The young girl sleeping downstairs, just below our feet.” He taps on the wood with a heavy, polished shoe. “What’s her name? Gretchen…”
Tears bite behind my eyes, and I blink them back.
“Ah yes.” A smile curves across his face. He presses in closer to my body and runs his cold hand down my arm. “Young, beautiful Gretchen…with such a pure and beautiful soul. Untainted. Worth a fortune in the underground.” He zigzags his thumb over my faded scars.
My throat is thick with tears and silent screams. But fear for everyone else’s safety keeps me quiet. The sour-milk smell fills my nose, flipping my stomach over again and again until I taste bile at the back of my throat.
He digs his heel into the floor. “She still believes in all those lies they tell you people as children, doesn’t she? Love and princes?” He smiles at me again. “If you don’t care about your own life…maybe you care about hers?” He sniffs at the air as if trying to catch her scent. “You wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to her, would you? You don’t want to come home one day, to this clean room, and find your walls painted with dear Gretchen’s blood.”
Fear settles heavily in my limbs. “Don’t touch her.”
“Don’t give me a reason to.” He lets me go so suddenly I crumple to the floor like a paper doll.
He grins down at me and holds his hands up in the air by his head. “Whether she stays in her safe little bubble or not is up to you.” He crouches down in front of me. “We’ll give you your first assignment tomorrow. Meet us in the underground.” He climbs back up to his feet and takes a casual look around my room. “We’ll wait for you.” His eyes land back on my face. “Don’t make us wait too long.”
He strolls from the room. “Easy, kitty,” he says to the lump of agitated fur in the hallway. Then I listen to the sound of his footsteps. They drop lightly down the stairs, pause, and then head out the front door.
I curl up into a ball on the floor and wrap my arms tightly around my head. Silence hangs around me, mocking me with its false sense of safety. Now I know exactly why my parents and sister died that night. They died because my mom was trying to run. She grew a conscience too late. Way too late.
And I’ve made the exact same mistakes.
Regret settles in my heart like a brick. All those years I complained…about Tessandra’s rules, about losing the rest of my childhood in that institution. And those were the only things that were keeping me safe.
And just like my mother I got restless and agitated.
And stupid.
Her trying to run got everyone killed. Because of me. Because of my abilities.
But that’s one mistake I don’t have to make. I don’t have to give them what they want. Though I have no idea how I’ll get out of it.
Kalin’s cat brushes up against my foot, startling me into a sitting position. My heart hammers as I lean back against the wall and try to catch my breath, my bearings, and my senses. The cat curls up beside me and closes her eyes as if nothing happened.
I stare out the window, into the clear, dark night. My thoughts fight for my attention. Along with my memories. My anger at my mother. My worry for Gretchen. I let them have me.
There’s another thing I have in common with my mother—and I’ve never realized how much I hate her until now.
I’m weak like her.
Chapter Twelve
Kalin thinks I’m hungover. Before we left for work, she kept trying to get me to eat crackers and drink coffee and take something for the pain.
But I want to feel the pain. It will remind me to keep standing. It will remind me to try and find some kind of fight within so what happened to my sister doesn’t happen to Gretchen.
I didn’t sleep well enough last night to get the alcohol out of my system. It sloshes around in my stomach as Kalin’s car jerks up the hills on the way to work. I’m not really sure how I slept at all. I pulled myself off the floor at dawn to throw myself in the shower with the hope that I would come out looking far better than I feel.
But all I feel is numb. And I look numb.
Kalin pulls into the back lot and nudges me twice before I get out of the car.
“Jesus,” she says, coming around to the passenger side to pull me along. “I should have left your ass at home. You look like a zombie. And you’re acting like one.” She stops and snaps her fingers in front of my face. “Tatum? Are you alive in there?” Nervous laughter fills the space between us. “Sweetie?”
“I’m fine,” I say for the hundredth time, my voice sounding hollow and listless even to me.
“The hell you are,” Kalin mutters under her breath. She drags me along beside her again, speaking, I think; her mouth is moving, but her words are muffled.
Emmerick’s truck is parked near the top of the lot, and he drops down to the tar as we pass him.
“Top ’o the morning,” he says.
Kalin’s steps slow to a stop, and she forces a smile on her face. “Can’t stay away, can you?”
Emmerick looks me over as he falls into place beside us, his own smile fading. “What happened to her?”
Kalin shrugs. “She woke up like this.”
“Tatum?” He steps in closer, but I won’t meet his gaze.
I’ll just end up blurting everything out and sounding stupid and crazy. And they’ll call the psych ward and let them lock me up again. Although part of me wants to go back to my soft-walled cell. But then what would happen to Gretchen? Would they kill her anyway? Would they break me out and make me watch?
Kalin’s lips are moving again, rapidly. “…hung over, but I don’t know. Between the hypnotherapy session and this guy she kind of knows bothering her at the club, I think it was just too much for her.” She looks at Emmerick sideways. “You were there. Did you see him?
“Some guy she knows? I saw her talking to someone. What did he look like?” Emmerick sounds alarmed, but I can’t tell for sure. The quick glimpses I take of his face show his brow twisted with concern.
That’s sweet…him being worried about me. He should be, but I don’t know why he cares.
“He was dressed kind of eccentric,” Kalin says. “Dark hair? Shaved on the sides? Did he seem a little weird to you? Like, not us kind of weird. A kind of super-intense kind of weird…”
“I didn’t see him. I should have.” Emmerick tightens the tool belt looped around his worn and baggy jeans. “Where did you say she knows him from?”
“Oh some place. Weird place.” Kalin’s eyes dart nervously in my direction, as if asking for permission to tell him. “Most people don’t know about it. I only know because we get clients that dart down there sometimes. Just a few people. Once in a while.” She throws more glances my way.
Emmerick’s gaze slides back and forth between us. “Okay.” He narrows his eyes.
“Anyway.” Kalin forces a smile. “I’ve been trying to get some coffee or at least some water in her. I think that will help. We drank too much last night. That’s probably all it is, and I’m just reading too much into things. Job hazard.�
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“Right.”
“Yeah, so, what are you getting into today?” She drags me forward, and Emmerick walks along beside us.
“Fixing a window upstairs.” He points to the second floor of the building. “There’s a latch broken or something.”
When we turn the corner, Renali steps away from the weathered brick exterior and steps into our path.
“Tatum. Do you have a minute?” She gives Kalin and Emmerick a tight smile.
“Sure.” Kalin drops my arm. “We had a late night. I think she’s still tired.”
Renali nods, and Kalin shuffles away into the crystal shop.
“I’m going to head upstairs and take a look at that window,” Emmerick says, speaking to Renali but staring at me.
“Yes. I’ll come up in a minute and show you which one.”
He waves her comment away. “I’ll find it.” He disappears inside, and as soon as the door closes behind him, Renali peers hard into my face.
“You can’t storm out in the middle of a session. I have to walk you out of it.” She gestures at my state. “So this doesn’t happen. Come inside.”
This is all her fault.
It’s immature of me to think so, I know, but my mother is dead. I have to be angry at someone I can see.
When I don’t move, Renali sighs and comes back to stand in front of me.
“Tatum, I am trying to help you.”
“Funny how your help seems to be making everything worse.”
Her eyes soften. “Look. I know I don’t understand what you’re going through, but talking through this and finishing your session will help. I’ve been doing this a long time.”
“Do you know how they died?”
Renali frowns. “Do you think I’m hiding something from you?”
“I’m just asking.”
She pinches her lips together. “Can you step inside? Please?” She opens the door and waves me in.
I slip past her on stiff legs and start down the hall. The waiting room is empty except for a very distressed looking man of forty or so, dark hair, sitting beside the sickeningly serene lotus flower painting. He looks up as we enter, desperation filling his eyes so full I almost feel sorry for him.
Renali ignores him, something I find strange even in my current state, and ushers me down the hall. I pass the downstairs restroom. And then another closed door on the right.
“What’s in here?” I rap my knuckle against the white painted door.
“Some files and miscellaneous things,” she says. “Stop stalling.”
I step into her office and sink down on the stiff cushions. The stuff in the lava lamp dances around in an irritatingly slow fashion, painting the walls a dull blue color that matches my mood. I drop my eyes to the dark rubbery floor between my feet and wait.
She shuts us inside and sits down across from me. “I don’t want to agitate you further by digging into old wounds, but I need you to at least tell me what you’re feeling about the memories that resurfaced yesterday.”
“Don’t you need to take care of that guy out there?”
“He can wait.”
I rub the exhaustion from my eyes. “You can’t help me.”
“Why do you say that?”
I look up at her. At her stoic expression. Her straight posture. Her ironed suit. For the first time in my life, the urge to poke around in her head drapes over me like a thick, suffocating cloud. I’ve never spied on anyone I know before. I guess I always thought that I wouldn’t like them to do it to me. But then again, they really can’t, can they?
“Why have you been married so many times?” I ask.
Her eyebrows rise. “Excuse me?”
“You’ve been married at least five times, right?”
She smiles. “I’ve been married seven times.”
“Why?”
“I like being married.”
“But you don’t stay married.”
She crosses her legs and laces her fingers together on top of her knee. “I have chosen unwisely. We all make choices sometimes that we regret.”
I lean back on the couch. My mind reaches for hers, but I pull it back. “Is that all you regret?”
“No. It is not.” Her easy smile never wavers. “Is there something about that night that you regret?”
I look down at my hands. I really don’t want to talk about it. But I also don’t want her reporting back to Tessandra that I refused to finish my session. I suppose I should be grateful that she’s giving me a chance and hasn’t ratted me out already.
“I guess,” I say.
“Nothing that happened is your fault. You do know that, don’t you?”
I meet her gaze. “You don’t know that.”
“I do. I know because we are never to blame for the actions taken by other people. If the blame lies with anyone, it’s with your mother. She was careless. And selfish. Her poor choices brought danger to your home.”
“How much do you know about what happened?” I’ve always remembered that she and Tessandra showed up that night, but I never asked either of them why. I certainly didn’t call them.
“She confided in Tessandra that night. Your mother was supposed to bring you and your sister to her house. When she didn’t show, Tessandra called me in a panic, and we came to check on you.” She falls silent. A blue shadow falls over her face, momentarily masking her features. But I still see the solemn clouds in her eyes.
That’s right. She may not have seen what happened, but she did see the aftermath. Maybe she understands more than I’m giving her credit for.
“I feel like it’s my fault Shaina died,” I say, my voice tired and soft.
“How could it possibly be your fault?”
“When whoever…” – or more like whatever – “killed our parents, everything was so quiet. She left our room and went to check on them. I should have tried harder to stop her.”
“You think that maybe whatever got her should have gotten you instead?”
“Yes.”
“Tatum…I understand guilt. More than you know. But this is the problem with maybe and what if. You don’t know what would have happened. There was just a door and a window between you and your sister and what was outside. Doors and windows can be broken. You saw what happened to the front door. It’s a miracle you survived. I know your sister wouldn’t want you to throw away your life out of guilt.”
She wouldn’t. But it’s not a miracle that I survived. They were never going to kill me. So it wouldn’t have mattered if I had gone out first. Or if neither of us had. They would have found us and killed her anyway. As much as I would like to think that they would just grab me and let her live, that man…
My veins turn cold at the thought of him. I never saw his face. He could be someone I’ve seen a thousand times and never spoken to. Because I would know his voice. It drips over me like slime.
I pull my arms in close to my body. He didn’t have to kill my sister. She wasn’t a threat to him. She wasn’t burdened with “gifts” she didn’t ask for like I am.
“Tatum, you have to let go of your guilt.” Renali’s voice cuts sharply into my thoughts. “It’s only dragging you down. You will never live a full life if you don’t let yourself move on.”
Move on?
My jaw tightens. I can’t move on. My past is my present. The future is my past. I drop my head into my hands.
“I wish I could help you see that there was nothing you could have done.”
“I know that.” My hands muffle my voice.
“What?”
I lift my head. “I know. It’s not my fault.”
Renali nods slowly. “Yes.”
I blamed the shadows. All this time. And I blamed myself because I thought I somehow called them to the house. But they were coming anyway. And they didn’t kill my mother and sister. They just killed my father. For no reason. Blood fills my vision.
“Tatum. What’s going through your head?”
I try to shake the
images away, but they linger and cling to me.
What if my mother was right about the shadows? That they were there to protect me. Then where were they that night? Why were they so far away?
And why save me from those things and no one else?
The silence is only making things worse, so I think of something to say. “If my sister hadn’t been normal, do you think she would still be alive?”
“There’s no way to know.” Renali watches me with the patient gaze of a predator waiting for its next meal to let down its guard. “Is that something else you feel guilty about? That you are gifted and she was not?”
“It’s not a gift.” My abilities are the reason my family was slaughtered.
And I’m back to blaming myself again. It’s just going to circle around in an endless cycle. It’s my fault. It’s my mother’s fault. It’s my fault.
But how did they know about me? No one knew outside of the family. It was just us and Renali.
She continues to watch me carefully.
“What do you feel guilty about?” I ask her. “You said you understand.”
“I do understand. I’ve been where you are. Blaming myself. For who I am. For things I’ve done. And also for things I had no control over. It doesn’t change anything. That’s why there’s no point in it. You can’t go back and save anyone, Tatum. You are here for a reason. I don’t want to see you spend your entire life afraid.”
I’m only half listening. Thoughts race around me at lightning speed, mingling with the memories, blending together.
Shepard.
Wait…did he know my mother?
The thought didn’t even cross my mind last night. How could he have known my mother? He’s barely older than I am.
Yet he mentioned her.
Not only have I made the same mistakes as her, but it appears that I’ve attracted the same exact people. People who have probably been looking for me for years.
I see how I could have gotten myself into this mess on my own, but I still don’t understand why they were after me in the first place. It doesn’t make sense that my mother—so desperate that she was trying to run off in the middle of the night—would sell me out only to turn around and try to keep them away from me, whoever they are.
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