Vendetta, Page 3

  "I'm not going anywhere," he whispers into my ear. He wraps his arms around me, holding me tight, slipping his hand beneath my tank top, touching the small of my back. "But what are we going to do if this doesn't work out? What then?"

  I pull away from him. "Then I'd like to think I died for a noble cause. Avenging the wrongful death of another."

  He shrugs. "So? Viola still wins."

  "In my perfect Heaven, I still have you."

  "You know that's not how it works. If you love me . . ."

  "Don't say it." I press my fingers to his lips, silencing them. He can't make me choose. This isn't about picking what's right or what's wrong. What's good or what's evil. Seth is important to me, but so is Viola. So was Stu. And as long as I have the visions, as long as I'm protected, I refuse to sit idly by while she destroys people's lives, mine included.

  A slow smile stretches across his face. "Just thought I'd try."

  FIVE

  "Hey, Mom." I step over the threshold and into her new apartment, plastic grocery bags crinkling as I move.

  I hate this burgeoning need I have to check on her. That my visits are always accompanied with bags of things she might need. Her favorite brand of hairspray. Those blue macaroni boxes, five for a dollar. It's as if, after all these years, I'm afraid she can't take care of herself.

  Mike is stretched across the couch in the living room, shirtless. A baseball game is playing on television.

  "Hey, Genesis."

  I slink past him, ignoring the welcome, and move into the kitchen, setting the plastic bags on the counter.

  "You can be nice," she mutters, glancing back at the living room. Mike cheers with the fans on TV, oblivious.

  No, not really.

  "You didn't have to do this," she goes on. She's eyeing the bags, though, anxious to see what I brought by this time. The pantry is probably empty, or approaching it.

  "It's no big deal," I reply, shrugging casually. "It was on sale." I remove the contents of the bags, pulling out the boxes of noodles, cans of soup, frozen dinners, and lining them up on the counter.

  And isn't this what I've always done? Made sure she was taken care of? That we had everything we needed?

  Mom opens a cabinet and reorganizes the few remaining items, making more room in the already tight space. She keeps the macaroni and cheese together, the soups together, and places the peanut butter by a half-consumed sleeve of saltine crackers.

  The apartment isn't much better than our old South Marshall rental house, or any of the places we've stayed, actually. The floors are permanently etched with dirt, and there are dents and cracks running up the walls and across the ceiling.

  There's still no kitchen table.

  "I know what you're thinking," she says, pulling on the freezer door.

  "No. It's just . . . I thought that with two incomes you guys would be able to find something a bit more . . . appealing."

  "I'm sorry to disappoint you. Not all of us have the luxury of borrowing our ex-boyfriend's pool house."

  And, just like that, I regret having stopped by at all. And I hate myself for bringing her groceries. For making an effort. "I'm paying rent," I remind her. "And that's irrelevant. It's a weekday. Why isn't he working?" I ask, keeping my voice low.

  "With the crime and everything else going on, businesses are taking a hit. They had to cut back everyone's hours. It's temporary," she assures me.

  A swell of anger simmers, firing my insides, and I want to slap her. I want to take her by the shoulders and shake her and demand that she wake up. That she grow up. That she find a real job. One that pays real money. One that she actually intends to keep more than a few months.

  "You can't keep doing this, Mom. From one crappy job to the next. One crappy guy after . . . "

  "Genesis," she hisses, eyeing Mike in the living room. "I do not need this from you right now." Creases of worry are carved into her face. Around her eyes. The corners of her mouth. She's tired, and she has that pale, glassy look in her eyes. Like she's already a million miles away.

  She grabs the shampoo bottles (two for the price of one) and carries them to the back of the apartment. I continue pulling out groceries, filling the pantry.

  "Why the long face?" Mike asks.

  "Shit." I jump, and the box of cereal in my hand crashes to the floor, denting the bottom corner. He leans over and picks it up. Our fingers touch as he hands it back to me, sending an electric shock coursing through my veins.

  "Thanks," I mutter, tucking my hair behind my ears, flustered.

  So awkward.

  He ambles over to the refrigerator.

  "You interested in something to drink?"

  "You're offering me a beer?" I ask.

  He pulls one from the case on the shelf. "Just a thought. Might help you relax a bit."

  "I'll bet."

  "See? You're always so uptight," he teases.

  He twists off the cap and takes a swig. I wait for him to leave, to return to the den, to his game. But he doesn't. He stays in the too tiny kitchenette. Crowding me.

  "So. Watcha been up to? Haven't seen you around lately."

  "I've, you know, been busy."

  "You should stop by more often," he says. "Door's always open."

  "Yeah. I've been busy," I repeat.

  He rolls his eyes behind those glasses, and instead of a thirty-something former banker I see an aging frat boy with a receding hairline and a paunch.

  "It would be nice if you came around more often. Your mom misses you." Another swig.

  I swallow back the laugh perched in my throat. "No. She doesn't."

  "Sure she does."

  "Okay, first of all, you don't know a thing about me or my mom, so don't pretend to be the tie that binds us. You're temporary. Transient." I struggle to keep my voice low. "That look in her eyes? It's the same look she gets every time she's fed up. She's two months away from packing up and bailing. So don't get too comfortable."

  He chuckles, fingers tightening around the bottle's neck. But the laugh fades, disappearing. "You really think she'd leave me behind." It's not a question, it's a statement. A statement I know, with absolute certainty, is true.

  "She's left better."

  His eyes go hard, stone, cold, watching me. He takes another swig, and another, refusing to break, then turns to leave.

  * * *

  I jerk awake, gasping for air.

  My face is wet. I wipe beneath my eyes. I'm crying.

  Why am I crying?

  I swallow the dryness at the back of my throat, trying to remember. But I can't. I can't recall what, exactly, forced me from sleep.

  I sit upright, eyes adjusting to the shadows. The bedroom door is ajar, the moonlight reflecting in the mirror above the dresser. A few pieces of jewelry are scattered across the top, the white rose perched in its vase, still as perfect as the day it was given to me. Everything is as it should be. Except one thing.

  Seth.

  He's gone.

  His side of the bed, though he never sleeps, is empty. The sheets are crumpled, his pillow flattened, but he's not here.

  That feeling, the lingering ache and hollow emptiness, intensifies.

  I flip my pillow over to the cool side, the dry side, and pull the comforter up to my chin, waiting. My eyes remain wide, open, and moments later Seth returns.

  "Are you okay?" he asks.

  I don't want to answer. I want to ignore him, to punish him for not being here. To punish myself for wanting him so badly. "I had a dream," I finally say.

  He crawls between the sheets, settling in beside me. "About what?"

  "I don't know. I was . . . alone. I mean, it was dark. And I felt . . . I don't know. There was nothing. No one. It was the worst feeling. Where were you?" I ask, accusing.

  He runs his fingers through my hair, smoothing the tangles. "Close," he assures me. "Getting an update from the others. I came the second you needed me."

  "Have they seen her?"

  He shakes
his head, frowning.

  Of course they haven’t.

  I close my eyes and exhale whatever pieces are left of that cold, deserted feeling. My lungs shudder.

  "I'm sorry I wasn't here," he says.

  "It's okay."

  "It's not okay. I brought you these nightmares, the least I can do is be here for you when you have them." His voice is quiet, barely audible.

  "What?" The silence lengthens between us. He continues stroking my hair. "Seth?"

  He props his head up with his arm, pulling away from me. "Haven't you thought about this? The connection? Your visions and nightmares?"

  "What about them?"

  "When did they start happening?" he presses.

  "After the accident."

  "After I showed up," he clarifies.

  I immediately understand where he's going with this, and I want to cut him off before he says it. Because it doesn't matter to me. When or why. I don't care. "Seth, it's not . . ."

  But he doesn't let me finish. "You can deny it all you want, but there's a link between all of this. The Guardians finding out what you can do, then Arsen finding out, and then Viola. . . . This—all of it—can be traced back to one thing: me."

  "You don't know that," I say. "You don't know that this wouldn't have happened anyway.

  He laughs, but there's no humor in it. "No, I'm pretty sure I'm the reason a demon is hunting you right now. The visions started happening, and then they were getting more frequent, and stronger. . . ." He trails off, voice fading. "This isn't how it was supposed to be for you."

  "If seeing things—good, bad, whatever—is the price I pay for being with you, then I don't care if I have nightmares every second of every day, as long as you're here to tell me everything is gonna be okay."

  "But what if I can't tell you it's going to be okay?" he asks, voice rising. "I don't know how this ends, Genesis. I don't know how we're supposed to be together."

  I sit up, unsettled and restless, wondering where all of this is coming from. "We're meant to be together," I tell him. "When you showed up that night at the gala . . . we danced. I felt like . . . I mean, even then I knew I was falling in love with you. But knowing how connected we are, I also know that it wasn't just me." I glance over at him, finding his eyes in the darkness. "And part of what I felt that night was you, falling in love with me. And some people wait their whole lives to feel something like this, Seth. To find something like this. Now that I have it, I'm not letting it go. Not for anything."

  "If I would've stayed away, you would've gone back to Carter."

  "You don't know that," I say, voice clipped. "I picked you. I want you."

  "What if, one day, I'm not enough? The things you could have . . . I can't do any of that for you."

  My throat closes, blood hammering in my ears.

  What is he trying to say?

  "You're enough," I insist.

  "For now."

  "Forever."

  He exhales a frustrated sigh, and I lie down again, resting my head in the crook of his shoulder, hand on his chest.

  "Why can't I stay away from you?" he asks, taking my hand in his.

  "Why does it matter? No one is asking you to."

  "Not yet."

  "We won't let them."

  "Everything about this is wrong, Genesis," he whispers.

  "Everything about this is right," I say, tilting my chin toward him. "I can face anything with you."

  And it's just before I'm pulled back under, that quiet moment between sleep and awake, I realize: that's exactly what he's afraid of.

  SIX

  There's a mother-daughter fashion show at the country club this weekend. All proceeds to benefit breast cancer survivors. Selena graciously bowed out of the show to allow her sister a sliver of spotlight, but refuses to appear without a new dress. Vivian is country-hopping in Europe for the next six weeks, and somehow I've become the second opinion.

  Shopping with Selena is an experiment in tedium. Dozens of stores. Dozens of outfits. Dozens of trips to dressing rooms. At some point they all start to look the same. I forget where we are, which stores we've already covered. It makes me grateful, in a way. There's something to be said for growing up broke. You know exactly where you stand, always. If you can't afford it, it's not an issue.

  "With everything going on, can you believe they're still having The Carnival this weekend?" Selena mutters.

  We're at the mall for the second time today, after having no luck at the boutiques uptown. Selena is convinced the strapless teal dress is the one. I wrack my brain, and cannot, for the life of me, remember her trying on anything teal.

  She pushes her sunglasses aside, rifling through her purse in search of her cell phone.

  I study the poster taped to the door of the mall. They're everywhere: plastering telephone poles, wallpapering various stores and restaurants. It's impossible to go anywhere without running into them.

  "I mean, on one hand we totally need to get people back in this town," she goes on. "I'm just not sure this is the best way to do it. Do they really think they can pull this off without something happening?"

  "It won't matter if people are too scared to show up."

  She finds her phone and flips it open, checking for any missed calls. "Well, even if they do show up, they sure as hell won't stay after dark. I can't even go out for gas by myself without my parents freaking out on me. These kinds of things are creepy enough without serial killers running rampant."

  I examine the advertisement. The illustrations. Clowns. Elephants. Sequined dancers and bearded women. And a man covered entirely in tattoos. Tattoos. "You don't think this is a good idea?" I ask, but my thoughts drift to another place entirely.

  "Are you kidding me? This gang—whatever it is—they rule this town. So what? We're going to pile half the city onto the boardwalk and pretend everyone's going to get along? I mean, there were stabbings at this thing before the town went to pot."

  "I'm sure the police will be there."

  Selena's bright eyes roll dramatically. She presses her phone to her ear. "Yeah, they've done a fantastic job. The police are worthless. I mean, other than write up a report when it's all over, what have they even done? Daddy is totally calling for the chief's resignation."

  "I guess that means you aren't interested in going," I say, an amused smile pulling at my lips.

  "Hey, Mom. It's me." She opens the door and heads into the mall, not responding.

  I don't follow her right away. I linger a moment longer, examining the flyer. The boardwalk. By the beach. Vendors. People.

  I yank it off the window, top corner ripping in the process, fold it in half, then shove it deep inside my purse.

  * * *

  Seth appears the moment I pull out of Selena's driveway.

  I reach for my purse, fumbling blindly until I feel the flyer. "I'm going," I say, passing it to him.

  "What is this?" he asks.

  "I don't know. It's some kind of annual carnival. At the boardwalk. I've never been, but there should be a lot of people there."

  He tosses the flyer to the floorboard and leans into the seat, folding his arms across his chest. "Not just a lot of people, though. One in particular."

  "It's perfect, Seth. All of those distractions. She'll show up if she thinks I'll be there, I know she will."

  "No, Genesis, you don't know that. Not for sure."

  "I do."

  "Did you have a vision?" he asks, lifting an eyebrow.

  When I do, he's the first to hear about it. If I would've seen Viola, I'd have told him by now, and he knows it. "Not exactly. But it makes so much sense." I reach the end of the street and press the brakes, stopping.

  "It's too risky," he says, shaking his head. "Even if there are people there . . ."

  "She's still hanging around, Seth. I know it. Please?"

  His eyes meet mine, watching carefully, gaze lingering. I plead with them. He knows how important this is to me. What it would mean to find her. To t
ake her out of this world. To have her out of my life.

  He exhales a resigned sigh. "Fine. We'll go. But I'm laying the ground rules."

  I stifle a groan. I hate Seth's ground rules.

  "Rule number one: this is a reconnaissance mission only. We aren't going to look for a fight. If we see Viola, fine. We'll re-group and make plans from there. Rule number two: I'm not hiding. If we do this, I'm going in with you. And if we happen to run into someone you know I'm not going to disappear."

  "Seth," I whine. "This is complicated enough without me having to explain who you are."

  "No one is asking you to explain anything. We're friends . . . we're dating . . . I'm your second cousin twice removed. I don't care what you tell people, but I'm not letting you go alone. If we do this, I'm there. With you. Physically."

  He eyes me carefully, waiting for me to agree.

  "Is that it?" I finally ask. "We go together and I don't start any fights?"

  "That's it."

  I flip on my right turn signal. "Fine."

  "Fine," he repeats.

  SEVEN

  At the boardwalk the sun is already fading, falling beneath the horizon, and the sky is streaked with oranges and purples as darkness settles in. I pull my denim jacket tighter against my arms as we pass through the gates, entering the carnival.

  Selena was wrong about the crowd. The place is packed with people. There's a noticeable police presence, though. We pass a sheriff on the way in.

  A cool breeze blows off the ocean, tousling my hair and rustling the skirt of my white sundress. Instead of seawater, it carries the smell of popcorn, cotton candy, and cigarettes. I breathe it in, and Seth glances at me, a smile curving his mouth. My pulse edges a degree as he takes his hand in mine, intertwining our fingers.

  He's taking this date night seriously, stopping first at the ticket booth, exchanging a twenty for a handful of tickets to spend on games, rides, whatever thrills this place holds for us. Hawkers yell as we pass, begging us to pick a duck, let them guess our weight, try our hand at darts.