Page 21

Chance

She’s infuriating! I glared at the road. Absolutely infuriating!

I hadn’t done or said anything that could have been construed as even impolite—and Chessie Catt had been treating me like I was a lecher since the moment we met!

At least I knew I wasn’t the only one she sharpened her tongue on. She’d taken a bite out of ‘big brother’ Kerry with all the haughtiness of a queen. Even after he’d scolded her for it, she’d continued to look down her nose at me, which was impressive considering I was six inches taller.

Out of nowhere, my memory drew up a face, and a sad smile tugged at my mouth. Zoe Becerra had been a prickly porcupine, too.

After Rome had brought Zoe on board as part of our small team, it had taken me a while to figure out why.

Sure, she’d displayed talent, but her attitude had been as caustic as acid.

It humbled me to realize Rome had seen through her act before I had.

She’d been with us for a month before I’d thought to use my side skill of empathy to “feel” what she did.

I’d touched her shoulder and the intensity of her pain had knocked flat on my keister.

Although Zoe was not a pleasant person and her tragic death was mostly due to her own pigheadedness, she had taught me to look beyond the surface. Shields came in all shapes and forms, after all.

I blinked.

“You’re doing it on purpose, aren’t you?” I blurted.

“What are you talking about?”

“You’re deliberately baiting me.” Committed to the conversation now, I plowed ahead. “Why? Are you nervous? I won’t hurt you and I gave Kerry my word that nothing else would, either.”

“I’m not nervous, ” she sneered.

“Then are you afraid?”

“No.” The word had icicles hanging off it.

“Okay.” Since I could hardly expect her to confide in a stranger, I’d let it go for now. “Look, I don’t want you to be uncomfortable the whole mission, so if there’s anything I can do to ease your mind—”

“I’ll let you know.” If her voice grew any colder, ice cubes were going to fall out of her mouth. “Thank you for your concern.”

I reached out with my power—and a hundred wasps stung me. At least, that’s how it felt.

Sometimes, I hate being right.

“Why didn’t you ever learn to drive?” I asked.

“Why do you want to know?” she shot back.

“I’m making small talk. Conversation helps pass the time on a long drive.”

“What did you give the sheba?” She dropped her head so that her hair hid her face. “As collateral for this car.”

“What does that have to do with—”

“You want to know about me, you can tell me something about you. A fair exchange of information.”

“Hardly fair.” I rolled my eyes. “Not when you can read everything about a person with one glance.”

“You can do the same thing with empathy.” Her tone was scathing, but then she gave in a little.

“I try not to. I really do. I stare over people’s shoulders or at the sky or something, and most people only …

oh, I guess ‘flicker’ is a good enough description, either too self-contained or free of trauma or whatever.

They’re easy to ignore. Sometimes, though, I run into someone like Kerry, who’s a supernova.

I can’t help but look.” “I know what you mean. After the incident with Gemma on the Appalachian Trail— Wait, do you know about that?”

“Every detail.”

“Who told you? Tara? Gigi?”

“No. Kerry.”

My eyebrows flew up. That story wasn’t one I’d want bandied about if I were Kerry, let alone share it myself. After thinking about it for a few moments, though, I nodded.

“That sounds like him. Straightforward and stripped of pretense. I’ve never met anyone so direct.” “He’s not like anyone I’ve ever met, either, and not what I was expecting from someone with possession taint. He’s destroyed inside, no question, and morally bankrupt, but he wants to be good.”

“For Gemma,” I muttered without thinking, “not himself.”

“Yes. I think that’s why he struggles so much. But he wants it. That drive says more about him than his tattoos or his scars or his taint. At least, it does to me.”

“You admire him.” I smiled a little.

“Unlike Ms. Fey and others at the Sanctuary,” the frost was back in her voice, “I do not prescribe to the theory that the possessed are ruined beyond redemption and should be shunned for fear of the evils with which they may infect the rest of us. One, taint isn’t contagious and, two, the possessed are the ones who need the most help.

They are the lost sheep who need saving, yet the Council has built up such a prejudice against them that they’re treated like lepers. ”

“And the ‘ruined beyond redemption’ part?” I took my eyes off the road long enough to glance at her. “There is no denying that possession taint is a one-way ticket to Hell.”

“There are ways to be free of it.” Her mouth firmed up and her brow came down. “I know there are. Before this mission came up, Tara told me John asked Travis to research the absolution process, and Jax said he’d heard of Sin Eaters once and wondered if they could help.”

I was sorry to burst her bubble, but she and her friends were wasting time looking into those possibilities.

“Sin Eaters work with the dead, and absolution can’t work unless the person truly regrets their actions. The only avenue I came up with was a blessing.”

She was quiet for a few minutes, then asked me what I had wanted to say before our sidebar.

“Oh. Well, I usually need touch to use my empathy side skill, but not that time. It was overwhelming to be five feet next to Kerry.”

“He said you wanted to meet me. After he showed you the charm I made him.”

Her tone was even, but I wasn’t fooled. I kept my eyes on the road.

“It was beautifully done. Meticulous and elegant. I wanted to meet the person who would do that for a train wreck any other neph would steer clear of.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” I smiled a little. “See that? We had a civil conversation as if we were friends.”

And those few words ruined it.

Her walls came up, and she turned her face to the window and didn’t say a word for the rest of the drive.

#

Chessie

I have never been, nor do I imagine I ever will be, overly burdened by the need to show mercy. In my opinion, a philosophy of turning the other cheek has no place in a world of monsters. However, after what I did, I often wonder how much of a monster I am.

One day shortly after Christmas, Kerry asked me about my sudden arrival at the Sanctuary. I told him the truth, and I did so deliberately.

“My mom’s latest husband thought we came as a two-for-one deal.”

For a heartbeat of time, the single sentence hung between us. I didn’t have to go into details; I could see he understood. I’d known he would, which was one of the reasons I’d chosen to tell him. Of all people, Kerry Harker knew how vile the Real World could be.

“Did he—” His big hands had clenched tight enough to make his knuckles white. “Did he touch you?”

“Worse.”

His curses had burned my ears.

Bile had clogged my throat, but I didn’t know if it was from the memory of what had happened or the knowledge that my mom chose her lover over me.

“What did your mom do about it?” Kerry had narrowed his eyes to blue slits.

“She called my warden and shipped me off to the Sanctuary. To remove his temptation, she said.”

Shame had curled my insides into tight twists of barbed wire, and I’d wanted to shatter the words as soon as I’d said them. What mother chose a man over her child?

The next day, Kerry had disappeared. His warden and our friends were shocked, but not so much as Gemma.

Oh, he’d called her before he left and said he needed to take care of something, to trust him, that he’d be back as soon as he could.

She was the only one he’d called, then he’d turned off his phone to make himself untraceable on the Sanctuary’s tracker app.

Despite his assurances, Gemma worried herself sick during the three days he was gone, which made my silence on the matter even more damning.

I’ll admit, if only in the privacy of my own head, that I’d told him because I had wanted my mother to suffer. To know a little—just a fraction—of the terror I’d felt every time she brought home another new lowlife who thought I was fair game.

I’d always been too weak to accomplish that myself. Then I met Kerry, and he wasn’t.

If you wanted someone punished, wanted them to understand fear, Kerry Harker is the perfect tool to use. He has a wealth of hands-on experience, no qualms about dealing out justice, and already damned himself. What does one more sin matter to someone Hell-bound?

Or so I tell myself whenever my conscience stabs at me.

Which was why Chance Parker would never know anything more about me than the basics. A soul like his, as luminous as the moon, should be shielded from the sort of filth that layered my own.

So, even if I wanted to curl up in his kindness, even if I yearned for it, I wouldn’t. I was going to keep my distance, push him away, hurt him if necessary. It was the right thing to do to any guy who showed interest. Remaining alone and lonely until the end of my days was a proper punishment.

Monsters didn’t deserve anything better.