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“No,” he says plainly as if I was asking his permission.
“Excuse me?”
He shakes his head, his face turning red. “You’re not ruining this just because you decided to fall for the enemy. You’ve known them, for what, a few months now? You can’t possibly think they would actually be willing to go behind their entire organization's back just to helpyou. I thought your parents meant more to you than that.” He spits on the floor. I can see the disgust radiating off his body.
Anger erupts in me more powerfully than a strike of lightning, “You do not get to tell me what they meant to me. I was eleven, and they were my entire world. They were myeverything. If you think a day goes by that I don’t think about them being murdered, while I watched helplessly, then you’rewrong. I will do anything to see this through, including work with our enemy ifIdecide that’s whatIwant to do.”
“I thought we had a plan,” he says, not hearing me. “You work forme.”
I laugh. A menacingly dark and evil laugh. There is no way I would allow him to take this from me now. I will kill the man who murdered my parents if it’s the last thing I do. “Trust me,Uncle, you do not want to get between me and my revenge. I may have workedwithyou, but this kill ismine. Try to take it from me. I fucking dare you.”
With those final words, I end the call with my heart racing. Who the fuck does he think he is? We were supposed to be a team, but lately, it feels like he cares more about this mission than he ever has about me. Part of me understands that he lost his brother. I have no idea what that kind of kinship is like, and I’m sure none of this is easy for him. But I lost my parents, my everything. I get a say in this too.
In a way, I guess I’m out here working towards revenge while he waits out there. The only thing he can do is work with the information I give him.
I get in the shower, my thoughts circling. Damien was truly upset, scared even. I never thought I’d see that expression in him. The Shades are known to bring fear, but it’s rare we ever choose sides. I hated seeing him that way. The concern coming from them seemed to be aimed mostly at me like they hardly considered themselves in the equation at all.
Getting out of the shower, I send a message to Havoc. I want to know why he revealed The Shades were close. We haven’t been talking as much and I miss him. He’s been a constant since day one, even more so than my uncle. He’s supported me and my goals as well as been an open ear when I needed to talk through missions.
My phone pings with an alert, but it’s not Havoc, it’s my uncle.
A: I’m sorry things got intense. We are so close and I trust you to do the right thing. Please, just sleep on it this week. If you still feel the same way next week, I give you my blessing to do as you wish. Love you, Little Warrior.
I smile. He may infuriate me, but when we both take a moment to step back, we always seem to be able to come to an understanding.
E: I’ll think about it and wait until next week. I will follow through with your task, but I expect you to keep your word.
One week. I can wait one more week. One more task and then I can tell them, and I hope like hell they can forgive me. I know we didn’t kill their people, but maybe together we can find out who did. Something else is at play here, and I feel like I should know what it is.
???
Laney and I sit on the couch almost the entire day talking about our week and what happened on the boat. Bryce made it to shore at one point and is being detained until next weekend for his trial. I’m not excited to get back to classes now that I know everyone basically hates me, but Laney has some ideas to help.
“I can’t believe Alexi didn’t let Damien kill him,” Laney says.
“I would have killed them both if they had. For what he did to me, he deserves to suffer. Being eaten by sharks isn’t enough.”
She laughs then. “You wouldn’t kill them, don’t even pretend. We promised no lies, remember?”
“I think you underestimate me,” I say jokingly, taking a sip of water.
“I think you underestimate your feelings for them, even Alexi.”
“You’ve lost your mind. I have hardly refrained from killing that man as it is.”
“I get the thing with Alexi, that video was awful. It still makes me sick to think about it.” I may be coming around to believing that Alexi didn’t share that video, but Laney is far from being convinced. “What I don’t get is Lev and Damien. They made it clear they want you. Why don’t you date them?”
I take a moment to think about how to answer that. I don’t want to lie to her, but that’s a hard question to answer. On one hand, I know what I feel for them is different than anything I’ve ever felt before. I don’t even know what to call the feeling other than a sense of happiness or peace. Maybe comfort? It's a mixture of all of those things.
On the other hand, while I know I feel something for them, part of me is afraid of what I could do to them. I don’t want to hurt them, but I know I already have. “I guess I’m afraid that if I’m with them, I’ll destroy them.”
“Yeah, but I think they’d be into that,” she says, a huge grin on her face.
I take the couch pillow from behind me and throw it at her. “No one’s that crazy,” I say, half joking half not.
“Have you met Damien?” She laughs. We’ve all spent a lot of time together since the video incident. “He can flip a switch between joking and playing around to downright murderous quicker than I can blink. I have no doubt he would be into a woman setting his world on fire.”
We’re both laughing now, throwing pillows and making a mess. I don’t know how I got so lucky to make this friend who is the opposite of me in every way. Yet, we seem to fit perfectly together. It’s like she knows how to make the bad stuff fade into the background and keep me in the present.
