“This was the only way?—”
“Answer my question.” I glare at her. “Why?”
“I just told you why.”
“You told me the same lies you told yourself while you were leading the people who trusted you into a slaughterhouse. I want to know the truth. Why?”
She glares right back at me, then rises. “I didn’t come here to be tortured even more by you, of all people. By mysister. By the one person who should understand I did what I had to do.”
I laugh, the sound scratchy and wrong.
She pauses at the door and looks at me. “What’s funny?”
“I never realized what a gaslighter you are. But now, after I’ve learned from the gaslighter of all gaslighters, I can see it easily. I seeyou.”
Her eye narrows and she sucks on a tooth, or rather, a fang. “We’ll speak again when you’re back to your normal self.” She disappears down the hall, though I hear her murmur softly to someone.
I hug my knees and stare after her for long, long moments. My ‘normal self’ died in DC when I was forced to forget who I was, what I’d learned, what I’dmade. But Juno? When did hersdie? When she became a monster herself, or when she took their infernal deal?
I sit with that horrid, tangled mass of emotions for a few more minutes before I shove them down, burying them all the while knowing they’ll only fester. But David was right, I don’t have time to wallow in whatever this is. One week. One week before Valen drags me back to Gregor. One week before the truth is laid bare and I pay for killing Theo.
“David?” I call.
“I’m afraid he’s pouting at the moment.” Valen appears in the doorway, his demeanor guarded.
My heart kicks up a notch, my mind poring over a million moments from before—the two of us in DC, his smile, his hands on me, his fangs embedded in my skin, his whispered words of adoration—then the million moments of after. After he stole my will and replaced it with his own—his disdain, his cruelty. I wince, the memories striking like crows against a glass window.
“Georgia,” he says, a world of torment wrapped in that one word, in my name. He steps toward me, and I flinch. An instinct.
Surprise flashes across his eyes, then pain. He’s back to the threshold, simply standing, his hands loose at his sides. Broken, far worse than he ever was in DC or even here—there’s something barren in his expression. And then it’s gone, his eyes somehow locked down, no longer windows.
“I won’t come closer.” He drops his gaze. “You needn’t be afraid.”
I can only stare at him, my thoughts and emotions at war.
“I spoke with your sister at length during her time here. She’d arranged a safehouse for you while she was still president. I’ve sent Coal to check it out and make sure it’s still secret and secure. Once I get word from him, I can move you there.”
The words barely register. A safehouse? “Move me?”
He gives a curt nod, his eyes still downcast.
“You have to return me to Gregor in a week’s time. How are you going to move me anywhere?”
His gaze snaps up. “I’llneverreturn you to him.”
Foreboding rises in my gut. “If you don’t, he’ll kill you.”
“Nevertheless, he won’t touch you again.” His jaw is tight, his posture gone rigid. “You’ll be safe here until it’s time to go.”
His tone wakes me up, pulls me from my stupor. I don’t like it. Not one damn bit. “Why are you acting like I’m still your prisoner? I’m not an inmate you can move from one jail to another. You took my will once. I won’t let you do it again.” There’s no venom in my words, only resolve. “That goes for this safehouse idea, too.”
He opens his mouth as if to say something else, then stops.
“I mean it. I’m not running off to shelter in place in a bunker somewhere. It wouldn’t work, anyway. Eventually, one of your kind would find me… And kill me.”
“No.” He snarls the word. “Never.”
“You can’t hide me away any longer.” I meet his gaze, his eyes stony. “I’m not running.”
