Vendetta (4 page)

"I know. And as much as I'd love to, I can't interfere with that choice."

"You left before," I remind him, voice edgin
g on defensive.

His forehead creases, and an unexpected pain stabs at my chest. The words hurt him, and now me.

"I know. I did. I couldn't handle it and I left you. It's one of my many regrets. But I came back. I promised I would never do it again, and I'
m not. I'm here, Genesis. For better or for worse, but I want to start focusing more on the better, if that's okay with you," he says, voice solemn.

I turn on the faucet and start rinsing dirty plates. "I can't. Not until Viola's gone." I concentrate on th
e task before me, what I
can
control. Rinsing each dish or fork or spoon or whatever and placing it onto the racks in the dishwasher. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

Wisps of steam rise from the heat of the water. I gaze through the window overlooking Carter's ba
ckyard. His pool. The palm trees. The perfectly manicured plant beds filled with exotic flowers. It's own, tiny paradise.

The dishes clink against one another as I load the last few. I can feel Seth's eyes watching, boring into my back as I shut off the wa
ter.

"I wish you'd stop worrying so much about me," I say, glancing in his direction. He's leaning against the counter, arms folded. His eyes fix on mine, wounded, troubled.

"I don't feel powerful enough to protect you," he confesses.

I wipe my
hands with the dishrag and toss it onto the counter in a heap. "This isn't about you protecting me, anymore," I say, moving closer. "I could care less who you are. What you are. What you're
supposed
to be." I spread my legs on either side of his, sinking i
nto him. "All I care about is you. And that you're here with me. Forever."

I close my eyes as he tips closer, and a spark of energy passes between our lips when they touch. Electric. He kisses me slowly, stealing my breath. A flush crawls to my cheeks and
he's everywhere, coursing through my veins, fluttering in my stomach. I move down his jaw line, lips brushing against his neck. He tastes like salt, like seawater.

"I'm not going anywhere," he whispers into my ear. He wraps his arms around me, holding me
tight, slipping his hand beneath my tank top, touching the small of my back. "But what are we going to do if this doesn't work out? What then?"

I pull away from him. "Then I'd like to think I died for a noble cause. Avenging the wrongful death of another."

He shrugs. "So? Viola still wins."

"In my perfect Heaven, I still have you."

"You know that's not how it works. If you love me . . ."

"Don't say it." I press my fingers to his lips, silencing them. He can't make me choose. This isn't about picking what's
right or what's wrong. What's good or what's evil. Seth is important to me, but so is Viola. So was Stu. And as long as I have the visions, as long as I'm protected, I refuse to sit idly by while she destroys people's lives, mine included.

A slow smile st
retches across his face. "Just thought I'd try."   

F
IVE

"Hey, Mom." I step over the threshold and into her new apartment, plastic grocery bags crinkling as I move.

I hate this burgeoning need I have to check on her. That my visits are always acc
ompanied with bags of things she might need. Her favorite brand of hairspray. Those blue macaroni boxes, five for a dollar. It's as if, after all these years, I'm afraid she can't take care of herself.

Mike is stretched across the couch in the living room,
shirtless. A baseball game is playing on television.

"Hey, Genesis."

I slink past him, ignoring the welcome, and move into the kitchen, setting the plastic bags on the counter.

"You can be nice," she mutters, glancing back at the living room. Mike cheers
with the fans on TV, oblivious.

No, not really.

"You didn't have to do this," she goes on. She's eyeing the bags, though, anxious to see what I brought by this time. The pantry is probably empty, or approaching it.  

"It's no big deal," I reply, shruggi
ng casually. "It was on sale." I remove the contents of the bags, pulling out the boxes of noodles, cans of soup, frozen dinners, and lining them up on the counter.

And isn't this what I've always done? Made sure she
was taken care of? That we had everything we needed?

Mom opens a cabinet and reorganizes the few remaining items, making more room in the already tight space. She keeps the macaroni and cheese together, the soups together, and places the peanut butter by a
half-consumed sleeve of saltine crackers.

The apartment isn't much better than our old South Marshall rental house, or any of the places we've stayed, actually. The floors are permanently etched with dirt, and there are dents and cracks running up the wa
lls and across the ceiling.

There's still no kitchen table.

"I know what you're thinking," she says, pulling on the freezer door.

"No. It's just . . . I thought that with two incomes you guys would be able to find something a bit more . . . appealing."

"I'm sorry to disappoint you. Not all of us have the luxury of borrowing our ex-boyfriend's pool house."

And, just like that, I regret having stopped by at all. And I hate myself for bringing her groceries. For making an effort. "I'm paying rent," I remin
d her. "And that's irrelevant. It's a weekday. Why isn't he working?" I ask, keeping my voice low.

"With the crime and everything else going on, businesses are taking a hit. They had to cut back everyone's hours. It's temporary," she assures me.

A swell of
anger simmers, firing my insides, and I want to slap her. I want to take her by the shoulders and shake her and demand that she wake up. That she grow up. That she find a real job. One that pays real money. One that she actually intends to keep more than
a few months.

"You can't keep doing this, Mom. From one crappy job to the next. One crappy guy after . . . "

"Genesis," she hisses, eyeing Mike in the living room. "I do
not
need this from you right now." Creases of worry are carved into her face. Around
her eyes. The corners of her mouth. She's tired, and she has that pale, glassy look in her eyes. Like she's already a million miles away.

She grabs the shampoo bottles (two for the price of one) and carries them to the back of the apartment. I continue pu
lling out groceries, filling the pantry.

"Why the long face?" Mike asks.

"Shit." I jump, and the box of cereal in my hand crashes to the floor, denting the bottom corner. He leans over and picks it up. Our fingers touch as he hands it back to me, sending a
n electric shock coursing through my veins.

"Thanks," I mutter, tucking my hair behind my ears, flustered.

So awkward.

He ambles over to the refrigerator.

"You interested in something to drink?"

"You're offering me a beer?" I ask.

He pulls one from the ca
se on the shelf. "Just a thought. Might help you relax a bit."

"I'll bet."

"See? You're always so uptight," he teases.

He twists off the cap and takes a swig. I wait for him to leave, to return to the den, to his game. But he doesn't. He stays in the
too
tiny kitchenette. Crowding me.

"So.
Watcha
been up to? Haven't seen you around lately."

"I've, you know, been busy."

"You should stop by more often," he says. "Door's always open."

"Yeah. I've been busy," I repeat.

He rolls his eyes behind those glasses,
and instead of a thirty-something former banker I see an aging frat boy with a receding hairline and a paunch.

"It would be nice if you came around more often. Your mom misses you." Another swig.

I swallow back the laugh perched in my throat. "
No. She doesn't."

"Sure she does."

"Okay, first of all, you don't know a thing about me or my mom, so don't pretend to be the tie that binds us. You're temporary. Transient." I struggle to keep my voice low. "That look in her eyes? It's the same look she
gets every time she's fed up. She's two months away from packing up and bailing. So don't get too comfortable."

He chuckles, fingers tightening around the bottle's neck. But the laugh fades, disappearing. "You really think she'd leave me behind." It's not
a question, it's a statement. A statement I know, with absolute certainty, is true.

"She's left better."

His eyes go hard, stone, cold, watching me. He takes another swig, and another, refusing to break, then turns to leave.

*
             
*
             
*

I jerk awake, gasping
for air.

My face is wet. I wipe beneath my eyes. I'm crying.

Why am I crying?

I swallow the dryness at the back of my throat, trying to remember. But I can't. I can't recall what, exactly, forced me from sleep.

I sit upright, eyes adjusting to the shad
ows. The bedroom door is ajar, the moonlight reflecting in the mirror above the dresser. A few pieces of jewelry are scattered across the top, the white rose perched in its vase, still as perfect as the day it was given to me. Everything is as it should be
. Except one thing.

Seth
.

He's gone.

His side of the bed, though he never sleeps, is empty. The sheets are crumpled, his pillow flattened, but he's not here.

That feeling, the lingering ache and hollow emptiness, intensifies.

I flip my pillow over to the
cool side, the dry side, and pull the comforter up to my chin, waiting. My eyes remain wide, open, and moments later Seth returns.

"Are you okay?" he asks.

I don't want to answer. I want to ignore him, to punish him for not being here. To punish myself f
or wanting him so badly. "I had a dream," I finally say.

He crawls between the sheets, settling in beside me. "About what?"

"I don't know. I was . . . alone. I mean, it was dark. And I felt . . . I don't know. There was nothing. No one. It was the worst fe
eling. Where were you?" I ask, accusing.

He runs his fingers through my hair, smoothing the tangles. "Close," he assures me. "Getting an update from the others. I came the second you needed me."

"Have they seen her?"

He shakes his head, frowning.

Of course
they haven’t.

I close my eyes and exhale whatever pieces are left of that cold, deserted feeling. My lungs shudder.

"I'm sorry I wasn't here," he says.

"It's okay."

"It's not okay. I brought you these nightmares, the least I can do is be here for you
when you have them." His voice is quiet, barely audible.

"What?" The silence lengthens between us. He continues stroking my hair. "Seth?"

He props his head up with his arm, pulling away from me. "Haven't you thought about this? The connection? Your visio
ns and nightmares?"

"What about them?"

"When did they start happening?" he presses.

"After the accident."

"After I showed up," he clarifies.

I immediately understand where he's going with this, and I want to cut him off before he says it. Because it doesn
't matter to me. When or why. I don't care. "Seth, it's not . . ."

But he doesn't let me finish. "You can deny it all you want, but there's a link between all of this. The Guardians finding out what you can do, then
Arsen
finding out, and then Viola. . . .
This—all of it—can be traced back to one thing: me." 

"You don't know that," I say. "You don't know that this wouldn't have happened anyway.

He laughs, but there's no humor in it. "No, I'm pretty sure I'm the reason a demon is hunting you right now. The
visions started happening, and then they were getting more frequent, and stronger. . . ." He trails off, voice fading. "This isn't how it was supposed to be for you."

"If seeing things—good, bad, whatever—is the price I pay for being with you, then I don'
t care if I have nightmares every second of every day, as long as you're here to tell me everything is
gonna
be okay."