He nodded slowly, as though reluctant to concede the point. “I guess . . . I just don’t want you to be glad about killing. You’re so young.”
She felt the dragon stir, and suddenly she badly wanted him to understand. She looked at him. “I wish you could have killed the people who took Nason and me.”
The way he was looking at her, she thought he understood the full meaning of that word, took. He nodded again, slowly, and said, “Point taken.”
“Or I wish I could have.” She didn’t add that she wished she could kill them still. She didn’t want to worry him any more than maybe she already had.
But she did wish it. And if she ever found a way, she would.
43—THEN
That summer, Livia took a knife course with an Oakland instructor visiting Kawamoto-sensei’s dojo—Maija Soderholm, a blonde, dreadlocked, cigar-smoking, heavily tattooed edged-weapons expert Livia thought was the coolest woman she’d ever met. The woman could make a knife move like a fan, like liquid, like a creature with its own mind. Livia realized that as formidable as she was in judo and jiu-jitsu, against someone like Maija, armed with a blade, she would be in terrible trouble. So she resolved to become that kind of trouble herself. She stayed after class to train more, and Maija, impressed by her intensity, spent hours of extra time with her.
One night, Livia asked what it was about edged weapons. “I’m not really sure,” Maija told her. “When I was a little girl, I picked up one of my father’s knives, and it just . . . spoke to me. It felt right. And I never got over it. I found a Filipino sword master named Sonny Umpad, and started training with him. Sonny taught me that every weapon you put in your hand has a personality, and that a properly designed weapon will tell you its function just by its feel. When he told me that, I knew exactly what he meant.”
Livia told her it was the same with her and jiu-jitsu. The first time she’d put on a gi and grappled on the mat . . . it all just made sense.
Rick, aware of her new fascination, bought her a knife Maija had designed: the Vaari. It was a gorgeous, handmade weapon with a curved eight-inch blade and a handle wrapped in waxed reindeer leather. Livia practiced with it incessantly, moving it in her hand the way Maija had taught her, with lots of dodges and feints.
In the fall of her senior year, Rick finally introduced Livia to his friend, a Portland sex crimes detective named Gavin. Gavin had a warm, open smile and didn’t treat Livia with pity or like a kid, and Livia liked him immediately. No one needed to say aloud what Livia had long since known. She was glad Rick had someone special in his life, someone he trusted, someone he loved. She thought that must be wonderful, even though she sensed it was something she could never have for herself.
Livia asked Gavin a lot of questions about his work. She had thought she wanted to be a homicide detective, like Rick. But talking to Gavin made her feel like sex crimes would be her true calling. It would be a better way to protect girls like her and Nason. And to avenge the ones she couldn’t protect.
Gavin knew about Nason, too. He was one of the cops Rick had told about her case. He hadn’t been able to find anything, and he agreed that until Weed was out of prison, they had no good leads to follow. She could tell he didn’t think Weed would be worth anything, either, but he was too kind to say so out loud. And even if he had, she would have refused to believe him.
After that first meeting, Gavin was in the apartment pretty regularly, sometimes spending the night. Livia felt bad knowing that, for a while, she had been one of the people Rick felt he had to hide his life from. But she was glad he didn’t feel that way anymore. She knew how much he trusted her, letting her see something he kept secret even from his own sister. That kind of trust felt sacred to her. But it wasn’t in her to trust someone the same way.
Rick used his Thai police contact to check with Livia’s parents again. The contact reported back that they hadn’t heard from either of their daughters. Livia hadn’t been expecting anything, but still it hurt to hear that there was no news of Nason. She asked Rick if his contact could check again—maybe in a year or so. Just in case. He told her he would make sure of it.
From time to time, Livia thought about changing her name. She’d read online that she could when she turned eighteen. She wouldn’t even need Mrs. Lone’s permission then. But as time went on, the urge faded. She’d never minded the name Livia, even though Mr. Lone had chosen it for her. Initially, it had felt like a disguise, and that was good. She had liked being a girl named Labee who was pretending to be someone called Livia. But after a while, it had started to feel like she wasn’t sure which she was, or who. And now . . . Livia just felt right. Like who she was, or who she had become.