Divided

chapter THIRTY-TWO

When we finished training for the day, Vittorio offered to make dinner. “I appreciate it, but I don’t have much food in the house. I don’t cook much, so frozen dinners are about the extent of what I have, aside from breakfast stuff. Feel free to scrounge in the fridge, but I doubt you’ll find much of use in there.”

“I could go to the grocery store.” His eyes sparkled.

“Oh, right. I’m going to stay here, though. I want to fill Kevin in on what’s going on with the coven. For one, he stopped by while you were in the shower this morning. And since he lives right next door, I think he deserves to know in case it gets ugly.”

“Why don’t you invite him over for dinner? I would like to get to know him better, and I think he was a little put off the last time we met,” Vittorio said as he scanned my nearly-empty cabinets.

I wrapped my arms around him from behind. “Thank you, Vittorio.”

“For what?”

“For including Kevin. For understanding how important he is to me. For last night. For loving me.”

He turned to embrace me. “Mio amore, you do not have to thank me for those things. But if you do, I should thank you for last night, as well. I saw how strongly you regret what you did. Seeing that helped to begin healing the hurt.”

After a few minutes, I forced myself to pull away. “Okay, well, I’ll be here waiting for you. I love you.”

When Vittorio left, I went to talk to Kevin. “Wanna come over for dinner?”

“Not if you’re cooking,” he said, eyes never leaving his favorite shoot ‘em up video game on the TV.

“I’m not, so you’ll be safe. Vittorio is going to cook.” I went to the kitchen to get a beer for Kevin. Maybe it would convince him to say yes.

“What’s he going to cook? All you have is frozen dinners.”

“He’s at the grocery store right now. And I didn’t ask what he’s making.”

“As long as you two don’t go all wonky on me again.” He popped open the beer and took a long drink.

“We won’t. I have much better control now.”

“Sure you do. That’s not how it sounded last night.”

“You heard us?” I covered my face.

“The place is old; it doesn’t have the thickest walls.” He glanced at me briefly with a raised eyebrow.

“Oh, god,” I said into my hands, still covering my face.

“Don’t worry, I won’t make fun of you. Much.” He poked my side.

“Maybe you should have dinner by yourself tonight.” I stood to leave.

“I already accepted, so you can’t take it back now.”

“Oh, fine. So listen, I need to talk to you.”

“Not about last night, I hope.” Kevin made a gagging noise.

“Of course not. You know I told you about kind of being the cause of that power struggle in the coven?”

He nodded, still playing his game.

I took the controller from his hands and paused it. “Well, it took a turn for the worse. They’re trying to force Vittorio out. They probably want me far away, too.” I told him about my battle with Elizabeth.

“Jesus, Elena, you have to get out of here. What’s wrong with you, playing house, while your life is in danger?”

“Calm down, Kevin. I didn’t say anything about my life being in danger. I’m perfectly safe for now, and Vittorio will protect me. And Kevin, this has nothing to do with you. If things get ugly, I want you to stay out of it. I don’t want you to get hurt because of me.”

“Yeah, right, like I’m going to leave you alone to fight the bad guys.” He reached for the controller, his signal this conversation was over.

I held it out of reach. “I can fight them more effectively than you can.”

“So what? I’m not going to abandon you.”

“It’s safer that way.”

“I don’t care.” I stared at Kevin for a minute before accepting he would not agree to stay out of this.

“Fine.” I glared some more before completely giving up.

“Did you at least tell him the truth about yourself?”

“Yes.” I tossed the controller on his couch before leaving. Hiding my fear behind anger was one of my better talents.

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