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I am chilled to the bone.
“Come work for me, Cassel, and you’ll have my protection. For your brother. For your mother. For your grandfather, although I consider him one of mine already. My protection and a very comfortable life.”
“So you want me to—,” I start, but he cuts me off.
“Philip’s death shouldn’t have happened. If I’d had people in place, watching over him, it wouldn’t have happened. Let me look out for you. Let your enemies become mine.”
“Yeah, and vice versa. No, thanks.” I shake my head. “I don’t want to be a killer.”
He smiles. “You may turn our colleagues into living things, if that helps you sleep at night. They will be just as effectively removed.”
“That’s not going to happen,” I say, thinking of the white cat watching me with shining eyes.
“It has happened. Maybe Barron made you forget what you did, but now you remember. You proved that when you undid one of your own curses.”
“That was your daughter whose curse I undid,” I say.
Zacharov takes a sharp breath, and then lets it out slow. “It happened, Cassel. You know how to work. And one of these days, you’re going to find yourself in a position where it’s going to be tempting. And then more than tempting; there’s going to be no other way out. Wake up. You’re one of us.”
“Not yet,” I say. “Not quite.” Which is about all I can cling to.
“You will think about my offer,” he says. “You’ll think about it when you realize there are people close to you that you will have to deal with eventually.”
“You mean Barron,” I say, amazed. “You’re a son of a bitch to imply at one brother’s funeral that I would think about killing the other.”
Zacharov rises and dusts off his pants. “I’m not the one who thought of him.” Then he smiles. “But you’re right—I’m a son of a bitch. And someday soon you’re going to need me.”
Then he goes back in to the service.
* * *
Lila finds me. I’m staring at the fabric of the bench, wondering how many people have wept on it. I’m wondering about whether the inside is crusted with salt, like a blanket that’s been soaking in seawater. I’m going a little crazy.
“Hey,” she says, holding out a cup of coffee, her mouth still bright as blood. “One of Philip’s friends is giving the eulogy now. I think he’s telling the story of the first time they held up a liquor store.”
I take the cup. I think the only thing I’ve eaten in the past three days has been coffee. I should be bouncing off the walls. Maybe that explains my nearly attacking her father. “You should go back to the viewing. I’m not—I can’t—” I shake my head to indicate the enormity of the things I can’t do. For one, I can’t tell her the truth about my feelings for her. For another, I’m not sure I can keep lying.
I want you so much that I would do almost anything to have you.
Please let me not be willing to do what’s unforgivable.
“We used to be friends,” she says. “Even if there was nothing else.”
“We’re still friends,” I say automatically, because I really want it to be true.
“Well, good, then.” She sits down next to me on the bench. “I don’t want you to be mad that I’m here. I’m not going to jump you or anything.”
I snort. “My virtue is safe, eh? Well, thank goodness for that.”
She rolls her eyes.
“No—I understand why you came. It must be good to see him dead.” I think of Zacharov’s words about sleeping better at night, even if I steadfastly refuse to apply them to myself. “You must feel safer.”
She gapes at me like she can’t believe I just said those words. “Death doesn’t erase someone’s flaws.” I look at the wall to avoid looking at her. There’s a photo of the funeral parlor, tinted sepia. I can’t make out the date. I wonder how many generations of workers have been wept over here. “If it did, it would erase him. I don’t want that. I want to remember Philip the way he was. I loved him, and he was my brother, and he did terrible things, and sometimes tried to make things better, and all of it matters, and maybe none of it matters too.”
“All of it matters,” she says, like she’s sure.
“I don’t know,” I say. “But I’m glad you’re here. I worried, after everything…” Everything I did to you. Everything my family did.
