“You should know better than to use a cell phone in a patient’s room. Now, are you finished in here?”
I nodded and mumbled an apology before pushing my way past him. By the time I was out of sight of the police guard, I’d already received the text from Dad with the address and a time limit. I still wasn’t certain I was ready to leave Evie unprotected, but I couldn’t get back into the hospital room to be with her anyway—not now that the guard would be extra suspicious.
Having seen what Dad was capable of, and having endured the Rain’s punishment in the form of retraining, I wasn’t willing to risk Evie’s life. He would take my disobedience out on her.
Reluctantly, and with a building sense of dread, I retrieved the bag Eth had brought for me from the janitorial closet and left the hospital to head toward the address Dad had texted me. More than anything, I hoped I could negotiate for Evie’s safety.
I’d almost gone crazy in the two years we’d been apart, and that had been after only a week of being with her, I wasn’t sure I could do it again, even if my family demanded it.
They would have to choose—accept her or lose me completely.
CHAPTER SIX
THE ADDRESS DAD had sent housed an old, repurposed police station.
Almost as soon as I arrived, I was shepherded into a small interview room. The table in the middle with a chair on either side reminded me of the treatment room I’d endured at Bayview. My heart rate spiked and my palms grew sweaty. Regardless of Dad’s threat, I wanted to rush away, leaving the sight and accompanying memories far behind me. For the sake of Evie’s safety, I took two deep breaths to calm my racing heart and moved deeper into the room.
Along one wall were two plastic chairs. I opted to sit in one of them instead of subjecting myself to reliving the horrors of my retraining. With Evie sick, maybe even on her deathbed, I wasn’t able to cope with any extra stress.
I hung my head between my hands as I sat and waited for the local Rain to summon Dad, or Eth. Maybe they were bringing an Assessor—even a whole pack of them.
A few moments later, someone sat in the chair beside me. I continued to stare at my hand rather than acknowledge whoever it was.
“You had to expect that this would be the outcome when you made the choice to leave your family for a freak.” When I looked up at the sound of Dad’s voice, his steady gaze assessed me with care. I’d seen the same look in his eyes many times, usually in the seconds before he would pull the trigger to destroy a monster.
“There was no choice. I love her, Dad.” I couldn’t lie to him anymore. It was pointless to pretend that Evie wasn’t important to me. He needed to know she wasn’t just a crush or a passing fancy. It had felt like a betrayal the first time I’d walked away from her. This time, while she was fighting for her life, it would have been something so much worse.
As impossible as it was, I needed to make my family see. To understand. I couldn’t leave her again. I wouldn’t.
“I know that you think you do, but it’s only because she has you under some spell. She has ever since—”
“No!” Pushing out of the seat, I cut him off. My anger propelled me forward, and I paced halfway across the room before I stopped. “There is no spell.” I spun back toward him. “I love her, Dad. End of fucking story. And you know what? I was happy. For the first time in God knows how long, I was genuinely fucking happy.”
I slumped back to my seat as the reality of how far from that happiness I now was struck me.
“Does she really mean that much to you?”
I nodded. “She’s everything.”
“Is her life worth more than your sister’s?”
Was it? The answer was yes. And no. It wasn’t like there had to be a choice between the two. It was only my family who would force me to make that choice—and only if I didn’t prove to them that there was another way.
I didn’t care if it meant moving permanently to a private little cell in Bayview together. So long as they promised they would leave her unharmed, I’d do it. I would do anything.
If I had Evie at my side, I had everything I needed. “Why?”
Dad wrung his hands together. “Because you’re being honest with me, I’ll be honest with you too. It was Louise who found the creature.”
My fingers clenched into fists at his use of the “C” word. Evie wasn’t just some creature—she was perfection. I closed my eyes and bit back my frustration. “Evie,” I said, opening my eyes to meet his gaze.
His eyebrows scrunched together in confusion.
“Her name is Evie. Not, that monster, that creature, or anything like that. Just, Evie.”
He waved off my correction. “Louise went to talk to her. Only talk. She was concerned about you and wanted to ensure your safety. But then that monster attacked her.”
I shook my head. “I don’t believe that. I can’t. I mean, Evie is in hospital. It’s not like she just put herself there. Where’s Lou? I want to talk to her. I want to find out what happened.”
He hung his head. “Louise is . . .” He seemed reluctant to continue. Before he did, he swallowed heavily. “She . . . she’s gone, son.”
“Gone where?”
An ancient sorrow was etched onto his features when he looked at me again. “She didn’t make it.” He squeezed his eyes shut.
My mind reeled as understanding struck me. Lou was . . . dead? Was Dad right? Had Evie killed her? I couldn’t believe it, but . . .
What else could’ve happened?
Long ago, I’d learned that all animals, monsters and humans included, had a natural reaction to a challenge: fight or flight.
Evie’s first instinct was flight. It was what she’d done in Ohio when I was accusing her of the worst things.
It was what she had tried to do in Charlotte when I’d first showed my hand. It was her response to Eth’s chase. I couldn’t understand why she would have stood her ground and released her fire if Lou had just tried to talk to her.
My mind offered up the frightening dreams I’d had of Evie as a seductress and fire-starter an age ago, but I couldn’t reconcile that picture with the woman I knew now. She wasn’t that person—she wasn’t evil.
I thought back to the one time I had seen Evie use her gift. She’d sent the flame into a business card I’d given her, but the fire had quickly developed a life of its own and spread. At the time, she’d dropped the card as if had burned her skin. Could the blazes she was capable of starting actually hurt her? If so, was Dad right? Had Evie set the flame?
Why would she? It made almost no sense. What need could she possibly have had for flames?
Almost in response to the thought, new images struck. My sister—the hunter. Flashes of her cruel torture of various creatures ran through my mind. It dawned on me. Evie’s first instinct was flight, but what if she’d been forced into a situation where there was no other choice but to fight?
Had Lou pushed her too far somehow? Whatever I asked of Dad, his answers would be skewed to paint Lou in the most positive light. It was in his best interest to convince me that Evie was a threat.
Only, I knew my sister better than that.
The memory of the witch priestess whom Lou had forced into a scold’s bridle entered my mind. I clenched my fists at the thought that Lou might have done something equally terrible to Evie. What tortures had Evie endured before retaliating?
Had Lou restrained her? Beaten her? Every additional thought made me burn for the potential suffering Evie might have endured.
“Lou would still be alive if she hadn’t tried to hurt Evie,” I murmured as the bitter taste of rage danced on my tongue.
The corner of Dad’s mouth lifted and he nodded in agreement. “I’m glad you’re seeing this situation for what it is.”
“No!” I growled. “It’s you who doesn’t see the situation clearly! If you’d all just left us the fuck alone, no one would be hurt or dead right now.”
His eyes hardened, and his smile dropped into a frown. “
How can you say that after everything you’ve seen?”
“All that I’ve seen?” I scoffed. His words burned into my heart and soul, touching the places deep inside that still bore scars angrier and uglier than any on my skin. Straight to the wounds torn open by retraining and countless kills. “All that I’ve seen?”
I stood and paced around the room again.
Memory after memory assaulted me. The time I’d spent with Evie might have been minimal, but compared to the rest of my life it had been like being granted a short stay in heaven. Only now, the door was threatening to close on me, and I didn’t know if I’d be able to force it back open.
“Like what, exactly?” I spun toward him, my heart racing and my blood boiling. “Assessors who are only a shade less horrific than the monsters they investigate. A sister more deranged than most demons. A father willing to subject me to torture for weeks and weeks just to get me to see his side. The only one who’s ever done anything halfway decent for me is Eth, and that was to murder a child! Tell me what part of anything that I’ve seen is supposed to convince me that the Rain is right in any of this?
“What part is supposed to make me believe that any one of our kind is worth more than the sweet girl who invited me into her life despite all of my faults, despite the fact that I was responsible for her goddamned father’s death, and who’s currently fighting for her life in a hospital bed just minutes from here.” My voice was hoarse by the time I finished my rant.
“Listen here, boy, those Assessors have gathered information that has saved countless lives. Your sister might have been a little zealous in her methods of dispatching this filth, but can you blame her? Maybe if you’d spent more time trying to help her and less time thinking with your fucking dick, she’d still be alive.”
“Don’t you dare try to put this on me!” My breath wheezed as I tried to swallow down some air. I was so done with the guilt that was a constant weight in my chest and sick of the Rain—of my father—for relentlessly pounding it into me for so many years.
They’d spent my entire life using my grief against me, using it to crush my spirit and as a whetstone to sharpen me, to fashion me into an unthinking soldier. To shape me into their tool to kill some who may very well have been innocents like Evie.
Since the day she’d walked back into my life, Evie had wanted me to see that I couldn’t control everything. She’d helped me to understand that it wasn’t my fault that out of the two of us, Lou was the one taken by the fae, or that I was too young to assist in the search for her. Evie had helped me—she’d given me a peace I’d never expected to find and had softened my sharp edges. “You were the one who failed Lou, and now you’re failing me!”
The back of Dad’s hand struck me across the face the instant the words had left my mouth. It was an action he’d threatened often enough when we were kids, but he had never actually hit me before.
Shock flooded through me, and all I could do was blink at him before turning on my heels and heading for the door. “Fuck you, and fuck the Rain. I don’t need this shit!”
“If you walk out of this room, that filthy pet of yours will be dead long before you can return to her.”
I stopped cold and spun on him. The way my blood boiled through my veins, it seemed like Evie’s gift had been forced into me. “If you cause any further harm to her, it will be the last time you ever see me. You’ve already lost one child, Dad,” I spat the name like a curse. “Do you really want to try for two?”
He took a step toward me. His knuckles were clenched so tight that the skin stretching over them was white and the joints bulged. “I am not going to negotiate with you over the fate of a monster.”
I narrowed my eyes and took my own step toward him. My own fists were clenched at my side. “Who’s negotiating?”
“Both of you need to calm the fuck down, right now.” Eth’s voice broke into the space between us, causing both Dad and I to jump and spin toward him. Eth’s brow furrowed as he looked between us.
“I can’t deal with him when he’s like this,” Dad spat as he moved to walk past Eth and out of the room.
I raced after him, yanking on his shoulder to stop him from leaving the room. “You won’t hurt her.”
“You have no—”
“No!” I shouted. “I’m not asking. I’m not negotiating. I am telling you. You. Will. Not. Hurt. Her.”
“Clay, don’t push it,” Eth warned me. “Dad won’t do anything until we’ve had a chance to talk it through, will you?” He eyeballed Dad as if daring him to contradict both of us.
With a soft growl, Dad shrugged off my hand before pushing past Eth.
I breathed a little easier knowing that my brother was on my side in the argument, at least for the moment. That support would only extend until he’d had the chance to talk me around, but it kept Evie safe for at least a little while longer while I tried to think of some other way to get back to her and find her a way to safety.
After considering my stance for a moment, Eth crossed the room and sat in one of the chairs Dad and I had filled not too long before. He waved his hand toward the space beside him, inviting me to sit.
After assessing him for a moment, and I accepted the invitation.
“Do you even give a shit about Lou?” he asked.
“Of course I do, I just—” I cut off with a sigh. The reality of Lou’s situation had yet to hit me. It didn’t feel real, not deep in my core. I’d always expected that a tangible feeling—something that caused a void to be ripped open in my chest—would accompany the death of one of my family members. Instead, I felt nothing but anger at my father and even at Lou herself. “How am I supposed to process it?”
“You’re supposed to get furious and want to destroy the thing that hurt her.”
I buried my face in my hands. “That’s the thing. I do feel like that!”
“That’s g—” he enthused.
“Just not about Lou,” I finished, cutting him off before his elation could grow too fucking big. “If she was here right now, I’d . . .” My blood boiled even at the thought, so I took a few deep breaths, before clenching and releasing my fists a few times to calm myself. “I’ve lived with Evie for weeks now. She’s had so many opportunities to hurt me or to let her true colors show if she was hiding any deep, dark secrets. But she hasn’t. She isn’t a monster, Eth.” My voice was infused with the passion I felt for her. I couldn’t help it. The way I felt about her—the things I would do for her—I needed my family to understand the depth of it if I ever expected them to accept our love. Of course, they had to see past their own prejudice first. “She’s just a girl. A beautiful, wonderful girl. She makes me happy. I would’ve thought that meant something to you all, but none of you give a crap about it, do you?”
“About what exactly? The monster?”
“My happiness.”
He snarled at me. “How about you get your head out of your own ass for a minute?”
“I get it, Lou is dead.” The word stuck in my throat, and it didn’t feel right to apply it to my twin sister. I kept expecting her to walk in the door and give me a hard time, to mouth off with her usual brand of sass that made me want to shake her senseless.
Eth tilted his head as he whispered the word, “Dead.” With a sigh, he dropped his head into his hands. “This just keeps getting worse,” he murmured, almost to himself.
“Maybe Evie did it,” I admitted. “But maybe she didn’t. Who’s to say Lou didn’t set the fire herself?”
“Do you really think—” He shrugged as his brain caught up to his mouth. We both knew Lou was capable of some sick things and setting a fire to kill something she considered evil was definitely not outside the scope of possibilities. “Okay, so maybe she could have. But that doesn’t change what you’ve done.”
“I fell in love. Is that really such a bad thing?”
He ran his hand through his hair. “You betrayed your family. That is a bad thing. Family is key. It’s the only thing we have in thi
s world that we can rely on. That might not mean shit to you, but it means something to me.”
I was wounded that he thought so little of me and my values. “Of course it means something to me too.”
“You’ve got a funny way of showing it.”
I sighed. “We can argue about this all day, it’s not going to get either of us anywhere.”
“What do you want us to do? Walk away from a known threat?”
A new weariness settled over me. I leaned against the table and took a breath. “Yes,” I said in a quiet voice. “That’s exactly what I want you to do. I want you to trust me when I say she isn’t going to hurt anyone.”
It seemed impossible that they would, but I was ready to lay everything on the table if it saved Evie’s life. I’d left her once to in an attempt to keep her safe, and I didn’t want to do it again. She was too important to me. I wasn’t sure I could survive without her after being granted everything I’d dreamed of since high school. I’d become addicted to the warmth that radiated from her body whenever we embraced and I wasn’t ashamed to admit it to myself. Admitting it to my family was harder, but if it was what it took to save her life, I was willing to do it.
“And what do we get out of that deal? More death?”
“No.” I pushed myself off the table and turned to meet his gaze so that he could see how serious I was. “You get whatever you want from me. I’ll come back. I’ll toe the line. I’ll even kill anything you want me to, just not her. I can’t have it.” Tears that I wouldn’t let fall filled my voice. “I won’t survive her death.”
“You know you have it backwards, don’t you? It’s her living that you won’t survive.”
“No. You don’t know her like I do, Eth. She wouldn’t hurt me. She’d never deliberately hurt anyone.”
He turned his nose up at me. “Your head is seriously screwed up.”
“Maybe,” I conceded. Maybe I should have been angry with Evie for Lou’s death, but I wasn’t. I was certain that even if Evie had in fact been the cause of the fire, it was only because Lou had threatened her—or worse. “But I don’t care. You have to give me that or I will fight every single motherfucker that I have to in order to guarantee her safety. Including you.”
Among the Debris (Son of Rain #2) Page 7