I shake my hand free of his and back up a step. “You need to leave Beecher. For good.”
Pain flashes across his face like lightning, there and then gone. Hidden behind that impassive mask, the control he holds onto so tightly. But he nods. “Understood,” he says stiffly. He retreats, putting distance between us.
But I’m not done. “If I see you again, Carter, I will take your life,” I say. My voice is clogged with tears and resigned, but clear. “And I need you to know that I may not enjoy killing people, but I am very, very good at it.”
29
“Are you all right?” Devon asks, leaning his head against the passenger window, his eyes shut.
“I’m…”Fine. Pissed. Heartbroken. Scared.“I don’t want to talk about it,” I finish finally.
He opens his eyes slowly and forces himself upright. “I don’t think Carter—”
“I said I don’t want to talk about it,” I say tersely, as I start the van.
Cold air pours out of the vents, blowing fresh wafts of our own pepper-sprayed scent back at us, until I adjust the fan. In the silence, though, with unanswered questions eating me alive, I can’t resist breaking my own rule
“Did you know? That he was like us?” Asking is like poking at a still-bleeding wound, nerves raw and sparking.
Devon hesitates. “I suspected.”
“How?” I feel like such an idiot.
“The way he watched you, the possessiveness. Some of it mighthave been regular relationship stuff, but it felt like more. Also, when you told him the truth at the hospital, he didn’t react.”
“He left,” I point out. Seems like plenty of reaction to me.
“Probably because he didn’t know how to act surprised by something he already knew.” Devon lifts his shoulders in a small shrug. “For all his dishonesty, I think he struggles with lying. Unlike me.” He offers a weary smile. “Based on what I’ve observed, he’s too regimented, too controlled. He’ll leave things out, but he won’t introduce the chaos of utter fabrications.”
That matches with what I know of Carter. Or thought I knew, anyway. My heart gives an anguished throb. My mind, however, is caught in a conflicting doom loop ofHow could he do this to me?andI should have known.
“Why didn’t you say anything?” I pull away from the curb.
“Would you have believed me?” Devon asks, looking over at me, a knowing eyebrow raised.
I open my mouth to offer a full-throated “Of course!” But it won’t come out.
I’d known Carter for over a year. Devon was the strange spawn invading my unofficial territory and magicking my friends into wanting him. I wouldn’t have trusted him to tell me the weather even if we were standing outside in it.
I close my mouth.
“It’s hard to see a relationship clearly when you’re in the middle of it.” Devon’s hand drifts toward his collar and the delicate necklace beneath it. He’s thinking of Amelia.
“It’s not… a relationship. Never was,” I say grimly. It was some weird power play that I was completely ignorant of. God, Carter and War must have enjoyed a good chuckle at my expense. He had me on the line and just… kept me there. With barely any effort.
My face burns with humiliation. And, as of this afternoon, Carter will have even more details to laugh over. The way I begged him to touch me, the noises I made, the concern and care he pretended to show over my injuries.
Except it feltreal. It felt like he genuinely cared about me.
Uh-huh. Same way he said he was in love with you? Yep. Very believable.Thisis how he kept you tangled up in him the whole time. Because you let him.
I squirm in the driver’s seat, wanting to burrow into the foam and springs beneath me and never come out.
Or, conversely, to jam the van into Park, hunt down Carter, and punch him until I feel better.
“What’s the plan for Nova?” Devon asks.
Relief courses through me at the subject change, which is a little fucked up considering. The implosion of my love life versus death—little d.
