A wave crashed higher, water spraying into my face. “Lydia—”
My sister’s hair stuck to her face in dark tendrils. “Wait until you have something you care enough about to fight for it. Then you’ll do whatever you have to. Then you’ll understand.”
She looked at Stellan, washing off his own hands and arms in the waves, his white shirt glowing in the almost-full moon, and then wrenched away from me and threw herself into the sea. Stellan caught her with a sweep of his arm and held her, kicking.
I ducked under, scrubbing at myself. “Am I clean?” I held out my arms to let Stellan look at my neck, my chest, my arms in the moonlight. We both ignored my struggling sister under his arm.
“You’re still bleeding, but I think the mixed blood is gone.”
The waves pushed us back into shore, and Stellan dumped Lydia in the sand. She scrambled to her feet, tripping over her sodden formal gown. “Where’s Cole?” she demanded, and then we all saw Jack and Luc standing over a crumpled form in the sand.
Lydia ran toward them. “Cole!” she screamed. She threw herself into the sand beside her brother, who was still bleeding from his head.
“He’ll be fine, Lydia. Stop screaming,” I said, and grabbed Jack’s arm. “We have to get them out of here. Take them someplace where we can hold them until we figure out what to do.”
Before he could answer, a group of cars screeched to a halt on the street above, and at least a dozen people piled out.
Jack cursed. “Saxon security.”
My mouth went dry. The men were sprinting toward the beach.
“Here!” Lydia screamed. “Hurry!”
Stellan pulled out Cole’s gun and faced the oncoming wave of people.
“No!” I said. “Everybody run. There are too many of them. Luc! Go!”
Jack nodded. Stellan pointed his gun down at the twins.
“No!” I said. “Don’t.”
“Why not?” he growled. “We can’t let them go. They’re going to release a plague.”
Lydia put her hands up. “We won’t,” she sobbed. “We’re not stupid. Put down the gun, and we’ll wait until our security gets here and talk—”
“You don’t believe her, do you?” Stellan didn’t drop his gun.
I didn’t. But . . . “They don’t have our blood. And they’re still—” I cut off. They’re still my family, I finished in my head. It sounded crazy, after everything, but it was true. “Please don’t,” I said out loud.
Jack reached around me and grabbed Stellan’s wrist. “Kill them, and the guards will kill you.”
“Please,” I begged.
Stellan’s jaw clenched, but he finally dropped his arm. And then the three of us, plus Luc, were running. I looked back to see Lydia watching us silently. We held each other’s eyes for a few seconds, and then the dark swallowed her.
CHAPTER 35
A couple days later, we were back in Paris.
I woke up in the bedroom of the apartment Jack and I had shared in Montmartre. My mom, who had been sleeping next to me, was already in the shower.
I stuck my head out into the living room. Jack was asleep on the couch. I watched him for a few seconds, the rise and fall of his hand on his stomach, his shirt pulled up a few inches, exposing the strange scars on his side that I still didn’t know the meaning of. His dark hair, long enough now to be a little wavy, spread over the pillow.
He hadn’t said anything more about our breakup, and I hadn’t, either. I truly thought I’d lost him forever, and now I wasn’t so sure. He trusted too blindly, too deeply, but so did I. I always thought I couldn’t let anyone in, but it wasn’t true. Over and over, I’d ripped my heart out and handed it to anyone who wanted me. I was finally internalizing that no one was worthy of that kind of blind trust, not even Jack. But maybe that didn’t have to mean all or nothing.
Stellan hadn’t brought up that night again, either, but there was no doubt that things were different between us. We knew now that the union didn’t mean we had to marry each other, but that suddenly didn’t seem like a big deal. I’d finally realized what a steady presence he was in my life. He didn’t trust anyone, but I had finally realized I could trust him—and maybe more than that.
For just a second, I let myself imagine a conversation I might have had someday with Lydia, if circumstances were different. A real sister talk, about love and lust and loss and confusion and how a person’s supposed to understand it all. How I suddenly felt even more confused, and even more alone.
But maybe alone wasn’t the worst thing. Maybe what I needed right now was to learn to trust myself.
I shut the bedroom door.