She nodded again. “Not me. Not my girls, either.” If he tried, she’d drop him before he could raise his defenses. It didn’t matter how she felt about him.
Alex took a deep breath and shook his head as if to clear it. “Look, we need to talk about this. But first I have to go reassure everyone that we’re dealing with things, that we’re questioning you, that we’ll have answers soon. Are you okay for now?”
“Sure.” She took a deep breath. “I’m fine. Go do what you need to do.” She turned back to the Councilor.
This time when Alex approached her, she didn’t pull away. His hands were gentle on her arms as he pressed a kiss to the top of her head.
“I’ll be back. And Jackson will be here soon. You won’t be alone.”
She nodded, but said nothing.
He left.
She hoped Jackson wouldn’t be back too soon. Contrary to Alex’s assumption about the Councilor’s still form, the man wasn’t dead. Alex wasn’t the only one who’d improvised as needed.
She had paralyzed Three while she tried to figure out how to make his passing enough to ease the pain inside her. As long as she had more pain welling up from inside, she had more pain to share with him. And the pain still formed a thick, untouched pool deep in her belly.
She squatted beside his head. “Open his eyes,” she commanded.
His eyelids peeled back. The horror and desperation in them was real, but fading. Although she’d made sure the Dust still pumped his heart, the lack of oxygen from his paralyzed lungs slowly starved his brain. That would never do.
“Let him breathe.”
Air wheezed in and out of his narrowed windpipe. The lights began to come back on. Terror bloomed again.
She smiled. “Hello again, Councilor Three,” she said. “You do remember me still, yes?”
She could see he did, and it was good. She needed to feed off the fear and pain that didn’t sate her. She hadn’t decided yet what a just retribution would be. She should decide soon, though. He was fading fast, and she could only do so much to keep him around before she’d have to heal some of the damage in order to prolong his suffering. She reached out, considering how best to heal so he still felt the pain.
Her hands were shaking. She frowned. Why? She wanted this. She’d waited and worked toward this. She needed it to show her parents—
Your parents would be horrified by you.
No. No, they’d be proud. Wouldn’t they?
The door behind her slid open and closed. She tensed and turned, still crouched beside Three.
A look of shock and revulsion crossed Jackson’s face.
“Lena.” His voice was strangled. “What are you doing?” He came closer, moving like a man approaching a feral animal.
“Making him pay,” she said. She didn’t sound like herself.
He crept close enough to see the Councilor’s face over her head. His mouth fell open.
“Close his eyes,” she told the Dust.
If it bothered him, she’d wait until he’d left again.
“Oh, Lena, no,” Jackson breathed. “You don’t want to do this.”
She laughed at him. She didn’t recognize the dark and ugly sound. “What do you mean, I don’t want to do this? I do. Very much.”
He stared down at her for a long moment, then he knelt in front of her. “No. You don’t. This will hurt you more than him.”
She blinked. “You have no idea what this man did to my family! To me!”
He reached out and took her hands from the Councilor’s chest. She tried to pull her hands away, but he held tight, gentle but firm.
“Look at him.”
She turned back to the Councilor, her gaze jerking over his chest in tiny, rapid movements. He wheezed with every labored breath.
You did that.
She clenched her jaw and looked down at her hands so she wouldn’t have to look back at Jackson. “I know what you see. But I see my parents, too. And it’s not enough.”
“Do you think your parents would want this for you? The people who spent their lives hiding you to keep you safe?”
They didn’t hide you just to keep you alive, Lena, they hid you to keep you from being corrupted.
He gripped her chin with gentle but firm pressure, pulling her face up. “I get it. And I understand wanting to make him pay. I do. But it will never be enough. You can’t fill yourself with pain and expect it to heal you. It has to be mercy.”
But Three hadn’t paid. She still had a well of pain inside. The debt wouldn’t be paid until it was gone.
In front of her, Jackson waited, face full of fear. He wanted her to believe that being merciful to a man who had no mercy would make it better?
“I can’t,” she whispered.
“You can.” His voice was gentle, and implacable.
“I can’t.” The wail of frustration and pain and anger bubbled up from the darkness inside. The pain was bigger than she was.
“You can, Lena.”