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“Of course. There now, sweetheart.” Sliding Belle from Stella’s grip, Mira nuzzled her. “Everything’s all right. Eve won’t let anything happen to you.”
“She’s just another brat. Plenty more where she came from.”
“Not for you. You’re finished.”
Stella’s eyes gleamed. “What? You’re going to shoot me now?” She held up her hands. “You’re going to shoot me when I’m unarmed?”
“No, I don’t have to kill what’s already dead.” Eve holstered her weapon, watched Stella’s smile spread. And rammed her fist, with all her force—her anger, her despair—into that smiling face. “But I think I’ve needed to do that for a long time.”
Stella lay on the sidewalk, as she’d laid on the floor of McQueen’s apartment. The blood pooled around her, a black lake in the shadowed dark.
“You can come back. I’ll just kick your ass again.”
“Well done,” Mira commented.
“Where’s Bella? Where’s the kid?”
“She’s safe. They’re all safe tonight. You just needed to put a face on the innocent. It’s easier for you to stand for them than it is for yourself. Tonight you did both. I’m proud of you.”
“I punched a dead woman. That makes you proud?”
“So literal.”
“She’ll come back.”
“And you’ll beat her back again. You’re stronger than she is. You always were.” Mira took Eve’s hand, looked toward the fire in the sky. “These were terrible times. Out of terrible times, perhaps more than ordinary ones, heroes and villains spring. Sometimes there’s little difference between them but a choice, and the choice made defines them. Look at the choices.”
“Whose?”
“It started here, didn’t it? It’s time to go.”
She woke in the dark, steady and warm. No shakes or unloosed screams in her head. So she lay for a moment, still. She’d dreamed quiet, she decided, as Roarke slept undisturbed beside her. And she felt the considerable weight of the cat, heavy across her feet.
Not quite a nightmare, not quite a dream—and not quite a solution, she thought. But progress. She’d have to think about it, about choices, and about the fact it had felt so damn liberating to punch the image of her dead mother in the face.
She wasn’t entirely sure what that said about her, but she figured she’d be okay with it.
In fact, she felt pretty much okay now. Sort of happy, definitely energized.
She shifted, propped up a little as her eyes adjusted. She hardly ever got to watch Roarke sleep. Most of the time he rose before she did. And sleep for her tended to be wandering in lucid, often disturbing dreams, or an absolute exhausted void.
He looked peaceful, and God, so beautiful. How did genes decide to mix themselves up, combine and create such serious beauty? It didn’t seem quite fair to the rest of the population.
Then again, all that serious beauty belonged to her.
Screw the rest of the population.
“There now.” He murmured it, reaching for her. “Ssh. I’m right here.”
Could he hear her think now? she wondered, but went with it when he drew her close.
“Did you have a nightmare?”
“Sort of.”
“It’s all right.” He stroked her back, brushed a kiss over her hair.
“It’s all right now.”
