I’d felt the enormity of what had flared to instant life inside me. I’d seen what it had done to my bedroom wall this morning.
Perhaps it had simply knocked her out. I hadn’t intended any harm, quite the opposite. Nor had I flung my hand as I did with Jayne, or even moved it at all.
She’d merely brushed the bare skin of her forearm against the bare skin of my shoulder.
“Fallon?” I begged with my eyes: Say it’s not true. Say she’s okay.
The Apprentice began to hyperventilate, gulping air, unable to make a sound. Shoulders shaking, tears spilled from her eyes.
I slumped back into my chair, doubled over and puked violently, retching the contents of my stomach on the floor until nothing but a thin stream of bile dribbled from my chin.
I didn’t need to look behind me to know Bridget was dead.
Secluded in a marker stone not only deadlier but much smarter, too
CONFRONTED BY EXTREME EMOTION, I box it and take action; do something, anything, whatever most immediately needs to be done.
My heart was screaming: You killed Bridget, you’re a liability, dangerous to your friends, run away and hide because you’re a monster and, as your mom liked to say so often at the end—the world would be better off if you’d never been born.
My brain said with cool efficiency: You made this mess, clean it up.
I stumbled into my chair, knocking it over, yanked it back up and locked my knees and began to collect parts and assemble them in a small, neat arrangement.
Normally, as soon as I see Rae, I catch her up in my arms. My deadly, killing embrace.
I begged every god to forgive me for killing Bridget and thanked every god that it hadn’t been Rae. Then I begged every god to forgive me for making such a distinction, as I picked up pieces with only my right hand because I had no idea what would happen if I touched them with my left, and no desire to find out.
Holding what appeared to be a fragment of the soft-spoken, effortlessly kind woman’s pale, bloody arm, I muttered, “I did this,” unaware I’d spoken aloud until Fallon snapped, “Dani, stop it. It wasn’t your fault. It was an accident. And for God’s sake, stop trying to put her back together!”
I hadn’t realized I was. I carefully placed part of Bridget’s hand and three fingers to the right of the macabre puzzle I was working.
The door flew open and I spun toward it, vibrating, shivering, dangerously close to losing control and vanishing in the slipstream. I hungered to disappear, escape gazes certain to condemn. I fisted my hands at my sides, right hand dripping blood, left hand ice-cold, and forced myself to breathe in a rhythm I’d perfected Silverside when sniping hostile targets. Inflate gut, wave the breath up to my chest, breathe out. Stop breathing. Shoot. Repeat. There’s a still, silent flawless dimension that exists on the trigger of a gun, and I could live in that place. It feels good there. Unbreathing, remote, I never miss a shot.
Kat stood in the doorway.
Bridget’s pain ended as swiftly as it had begun. But mine was a mushroom cloud of toxic emotion she must have felt and come running to discern the cause. She took stock of me, assessed Fallon, squared her shoulders, and glanced left at the demolished bookcase, the bits of bone and flesh, the mangled remains of Bridget.
I gave her enormous kudos that she didn’t double over and puke, as I wiped the last bit of bile from my chin.
“What happened?” she said quietly.
“I killed—”
“Shut up, Dani,” Fallon said sharply as she moved to join me. But not too close; she stopped a few feet away. “Dani didn’t kill Bridget,” she told Kat. “Bridget bent over her left shoulder as Dani was standing up. The black part of her is dangerous and she didn’t know it.”
“How can you exonerate me? She’s dead.”
“How can you convict yourself?” Fallon retorted, eyes flashing. “It was an accident. I saw the entire thing. You had no idea she was behind you. You had no idea anything about you was dangerous.”
“I should have known.”
“How could you know?”
“It’s my arm. That makes it my fault.”
“Stop it, Dani,” Kat said quietly. “You won’t be carrying this one, too.”
Yes, I would. But saying so would only make Kat and Fallon work harder to excuse me. “Kat, what if I’d picked up Rae like I usually do?” My voice broke on the words at the same time my knees gave out. I sank to the floor, tucked my head in my arms, half expecting my own head to blow up, fighting tears. I would weep. But in private. Alone. I would dance until I was too exhausted to hold it in any longer then I would cry. And deal. Like I always do.
“Get buckets of hot soapy water and trash bags,” Kat instructed Fallon. “Bring mops, Enyo, and a few of the Adepts.”
I glanced up and watched Fallon leave with a sharp stab of pride. An Apprentice, she’d not fallen apart. She’d lost it for a moment, then become the warrior that was needed.
Kat closed the door behind her, moved into the room and sank to her knees a few feet from me. “I’d take you in my arms and comfort you but we seem to have a wee bit of a problem.”
“A wee bit?” I mocked darkly. “I just killed an innocent woman. A good woman with a good life ahead of her. Done. Gone. End of story. Thanks to me.”
“I know some of what Rowena did to you.”
I stiffened. I know a truth—most people can’t handle the truths of my life. The sidhe-seers perform surgery on our world with anesthesia when at all possible, employing a deft technique. I hack out the cancerous spots, in brutal fashion, armed with whatever weapon is handy. The way I was taught. The way I did it the first time. I began lying young. Made compartments to store them all in, to keep track. Lying is a pain in the ass. It complicates the brain, mandates the creation of more files, consuming valuable space.
“She kept a hidden cache in her suite. When I stayed there, I discovered a collection beneath a floorboard. Some were maps of the abbey, which will prove useful as we explore beneath. There were two journals.”
I narrowed my eyes, searching her gaze. How much did she know?