“Sometimes,” Finn said quietly, “I really hate you.”
“So is that a yes?”
Will didn’t blink as he found himself staring down the barrel of a Colt M1877.
Finn had to admire that. Of course, Will could take that gun, melt it into a noose and strangle Finn with it before the metal even cooled, so that might explain why Will didn’t so much as change his expression.
“I. Hate. You,” Finn bit off, fury beating and chewing at his nerves with jagged, gnawing little teeth that left him wanting to scream.
“You aren’t the first.” Will reached up, closed a hand around the barrel and pushed.
Because he knew he wouldn’t shoot, Finn lowered the gun and then, weary, he shoved it into the holster and turned away.
“I don’t want to know this,” he said. “I have enough nightmares in my head.”
“He never hurt her. Not physically. She went to her grave bearing guilt. That alone is an awful burden, but you and I both know that there are much worse sins in this world.”
Slowly, he turned his head and looked back at Will.
The other man was staring into the sky, his expression serene. “He slept with her once, only once. He didn’t hurt her. He had her convinced that you’d abandoned her and she was upset, lonely.”
“Abandoned…but…”
Finn stopped, shaking his head. He didn’t bother to ask how Will knew. The man seemed to know everything he wanted. Or at least what he needed.
“He took your letters. He took hers.” Will shrugged. “He planned it to the last detail, even knowing just how long to wait to make her start to wonder. He planted the seeds of doubt early on, and even before that, he’d let her know how he felt. He was subtle.”
“Incubae don’t know what subtle is,” Finn said, shaking his head.
Will didn’t respond.
Slowly, Finn turned, stared at the other man. “What aren’t you telling me?”
Long, heavy moments of silence passed. It could have been moments—it could have been hours. But each heartbeat drew Finn tighter and tighter. When Will finally turned to look at him, Finn’s nerves were drawn too tight and his skin felt sunburnt from the effort it took to keep himself locked down.
“You were too young,” Will said, his voice low. “You were too young and too new and you didn’t feel it. The fact that you even recognized Sawyer as broken was amazing—of course, you knew him from before and you likely saw the wrongness in him because of that. But he wasn’t the only demon we’d gone there to face. Once you were in stasis, Sina and I went after the other one. She was the one who had the most influence on the girl. Apparently she’d been working with Sawyer. If it hadn’t been for her, the incubae wouldn’t have even found his way into town.”
Her—
Finn roared and spun away, going to his knees and plunging his hands into the earth.
There, he unleashed.
The fire flowed deep, deep, deep—
The scent of scorched earth flood his head and he sucked in air, fought to control it.
Head spinning, he opened his eyes.
Around him, birds sang.
Off in the distance, he could hear the river.
The footsteps were nearly soundless and Finn found himself eyeing the white toes of Will’s boots while he continued to fight for air. “Her…” he panted, memory raging inside him. “It was her mother.”
“Yes.”
Jerking his hands out of the ground, he rose. The air smoked, steamed. The fire had cooled to something almost manageable and he felt empty, almost numb. His legs were stiff and he practically stumbled as he moved a few feet away.
“She was the one who told me I should go, make my mark and better myself if I truly wanted to be worthy of her daughter,” Finn said, looking down at his hands, streaked with dirt but unmarred. He’d damn neared killed himself trying to make his mark. Trying to make himself worthy.
“She wanted you out of the picture. That town was to be her hunting ground, but you were always picking up the pieces, stopping fights…starting them.” Will paused. “You were always the hero type, Thom.”
Finn growled under his breath.
“It’s the truth and you know it. You’d rescue a cat from a tree, put yourself between a town drunk and his wife even when you were nothing but a scrawny bit of nothing.” Will paused. “I should know. I was watching you even then.”
“Too bad you didn’t show up a little sooner.” Finn’s bitterness was going to choke him. “We could have saved her, and maybe even me.”
It wasn’t his fate to be saved, though. Not if Will had been watching him.
What a bitch to know all of this.
Why had he even asked?
It tormented him. Even now. To think that maybe, just maybe, she could have been saved. That maybe he could have some time with her, a life with her.
That if evil hadn’t been lurking at the shadows of his life or maybe if he’d been more wary, from the beginning, he would have been there when that evil came to call.
And he could have had some sort of life to look back on. Instead of this…nothingness.
“Finn. Isn’t it time to let it go? You’ve come too far to lose yourself to a memory,” Will said, his words little more than a whisper on the air.
“A memory.” He turned away from Will.
That was what Will didn’t understand.
She was more than a memory to him, and always had been.
He all but ached for want of her. He couldn’t make himself believe that she was truly gone. Never mind that he’d stood at the side of her grave as she was lowered down in the waiting earth.
Once it was done, the world had gone dark as he slid into a deep, mindless sleep that had lasted almost three weeks.
It wasn’t until later that he realized he shouldn’t have come back into the world, wings or no, the way he had. A newly made Grimm was weak and while a new one might not immediately collapse into sleep, within hours, they usually succumb to that deep, dreamless sleep, one that could last hours, or days…and it took weeks or longer to grow into any measure of strength.
Finn practically set the world around him on fire only moments after his return into this life.
Those early days were surreal to him, never fully connecting in his mind.
Maybe that was why he had a hard time believing she was really gone.
So much more than a memory, but that was all she’d ever be.
A memory…who even now haunted his dreams, twining there with all the mistakes, all the times he’d failed.
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Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
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Figure of Speech
Copyright © 2015 by Dana Marie Bell
ISBN: 978-1-61922-636-4
Edited by Tera Cuskaden
Cover by Kanaxa
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First Samhain Publishing, Ltd. electronic publication: March 2015
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Figure of Speech (Halle Shifters) Page 25