I don’t know why that makes my eyes sting with tears. But it does. I try to hide the resulting sniffle. “What did War want you to do? What was the grand scheme?”
He stares at a point in the distance, refusing eye contact. His cheeks hold bright spots of color. “Nothing, at first. Just watching you.”
“Did you tell him? About…” I want to make light of the situation.Did you tell him about your predilection for short skirts and empty study lounges? Your need to make me come in every building on campus, except my dorm room?But that turns it into something cheap and empty and I can’t quite make myself do it. “About us?” I finish finally.
He dips his head in shame. “I did.”
It’s nothing less than I was expecting, but it still makes me want to throw up.
“Everything changed, though, when Death announced you as a successor,” Carter says. “And then Devon showed up. I tried to find him at the other hotels and send him away.” He grimaces.
I stiffen. “When you said you were at Dr. Stephens’s office.” The voices in the background on the phone that day, the toddler having a meltdown. Carter was at a hotel, not at work. “The attacks that Chessa was talking about? That was you?”
But before he can answer, more puzzle pieces snap into place, hindsight providing the perspective I had no idea I was missing at the time. “Wait a minute, wait. That’s why. That’s why you came to Happy’s on Friday night in the first place.” I gulp down air, tryingto swallow the pain. “Why you wanted to befriends.” Anger floods through me suddenly, and I charge at him. “You said you missed me. You said—”
“I did. I do.” This time, he does grab me, locking his hands on my shoulders, holding me in place but with a gentleness that makes me want to scream at him. “I was just supposed to encourage you to keep living your life, refusing Death’s plan. And you were already doing that, so—”
I tear myself away from him. “So no harm no foul? It’s still manipulation. A lie.” My voice cracks on the last word. It is a huge horrible lie that is eating its way through my soul and my ability to keep myself from crying.
“Any more than the lie you’ve been living, pretending to be human?” Carter asks. He doesn’t sound defensive or like he’s trying to justify his behavior. Just tired and matter-of-fact.
It’s not at all the same. Except I can’t articulate how and that somehow makes it worse.
My jaw clenched, I jab a finger at him. “Fuck. You.”
I want to storm off, get in the van and leave him and this entire miserable moment behind. Bury it in my past like I’ve tried with every other huge mistake I’ve made.
But I can’t. Pandora’s metaphorical box has been opened, and now I have to know if it’s true. What I’ve been fearing since the moment I saw that blood leaking out from under Nova’s clothing. The moment I realized a War spawn was here, right here all along.
“Did you do it?” I swallow hard over the burning tightness in my throat. “Did you… hurt Lennie? Did you kill her?” This whole time I’ve been looking for a War spawn, an intruder, a violent outside force hiding in our community. Part of me is still hoping, begging whatever deity is in charge of our universe, that I wasright. That Carter will look at me now, horrified by the prospect of what I’m suggesting.
He opens his mouth and then closes it again. “She saw me. Later that night. At a dive bar in Danvers. I needed to be at full-strength if I was going to confront Devon.”
A sob wrenches itself from the walls of my lungs, and it’s all I can do to keep it from emerging. My body shakes with the effort of staying quiet.
“I always fed outside of town, away from you,” he adds.
So thoughtful of him, not at all about covering his own ass and hiding his identity from me.
“I never thought anyone I knew would…” That muscle near the back of his jaw jumps visibly, and then he shakes his head. “She walked into the middle of a fight in the parking lot. She thought… she thought it was some kind of bizarre fight club. Or a sex thing.” He gives an exasperated huff.
“The bruise on your face,” I whisper, between hitches of breath. “It wasn’t a hickey.”
“Guy clipped me with an elbow when she distracted me. I told you it wasn’t.”
“No, no, you don’t get to claim honesty points because of a fucking bruise!” I shout at him, and the dam breaks. Tears stream down my face. “Then what?
“She was jealous of you, so I knew she would run straight to you. She wanted you to be unhappy with her. It’s the only way she was ever content—when others were miserable, too. I don’t know if you noticed.”
Of course I noticed. I counted on it. “She tried to call me. But I didn’t hear it. I didn’t answer.” Jesus, how different everything might have been now if I had just heard that call then.
Carter nods. He already knew that. Of course.
“She didn’t understand what she’d seen.” His troubled gaze flicks up to meet mine. “But I knew you would.”
A strangled gasp escapes my mouth. “Are you blaming me?”
“Of course not. Just…” He closes his eyes. “Just trying to explain. I couldn’t take the risk.”
