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Sam bangs his head against the table lightly and then downs his drink in three long swallows. I’m pretty sure he’s forgotten to be worried about getting in trouble with anyone. “My girlfriend dumped me.”
“Huh,” Grandad says, nodding. “The young lady with you at Philip’s funeral? I remember her. Seemed nice enough. That’s too bad. I’m sorry, kid.”
“I really—I loved her,” Sam says. Then he refills his glass.
Grandad goes into the other room for the Armagnac. “What happened?”
“She hid something big—and when I found out, I was really pissed. And she was sorry. But by the time I was ready to forgive her, she was the one who was pissed. And then I had to be sorry. But I wasn’t. And by the time I was, she had a different boyfriend.”
My grandfather shakes his head. “Sometimes a girl’s got to walk away before she knows what she wants.”
Sam pours some of the Armagnac into his glass, along with the dregs of the rye. He tops off the concoction with a shot of Campari.
“Don’t drink that!” I say.
He toasts to us and then tosses the whole thing back.
Even Grandad winces. “No girl’s worth the hangover you’re going to have come morning.”
“Daneca is,” Sam says, words slurring.
“You got a lot of ladies to get through. You’re still young. First love’s the sweetest, but it doesn’t last.”
“Not ever?” I ask.
Grandad looks at me with a seriousness he reserves for moments when he wants me to really pay attention. “When we fall that first time, we’re not really in love with the girl. We’re in love with being in love. We’ve got no idea what she’s really about—or what she’s capable of. We’re in love with our idea of her and of who we become around her. We’re idiots.”
I get up and start stacking dishes in the sink. I’m not too steady on my feet right now, but I manage it.
When I was a kid, I guess I loved Lila like that. Even when I thought I’d killed her, I still saw her as the ideal girl—the pinnacle of girlhood that nobody else was ever going to be able to get close to. But when she came back, I had to see her the way she was—complicated, angry, and a lot more like me than I’d ever guessed. I might not know what Lila is capable of, but I know her.
Love changes us, but we change how we love too.
“Come on,” Sam says from the table, pouring bright red liquor into teacups he’s found somewhere. “Let’s do shots.”
* * *
I wake up with the horrible taste of cough medicine in my mouth.
Someone is pounding on the front door. I turn over and cover my head with a pillow. I don’t care who it is. I’m not going downstairs.
“Cassel!” My grandfather’s voice booms through the house.
“What?” I shout back.
“There’s somebody to see you. He says he’s from the government.”
I groan and roll out of bed. So much for my avoiding answering the door. I pull on jeans over my boxers, rub sleep out of my eyes, and grab for a shirt and a pair of clean gloves. Stubble itches along my cheeks.
As I brush my teeth, trying to scrub the taste of the night before out of my mouth, dread finally catches up with me. If my grandfather guesses that I’m thinking about working for Yulikova, I have no idea what he will do. There’s no worse kind of traitor to guys like Grandad. And as much as I know he loves me, he’s also somebody who believes in putting his duty before feelings.
I shuffle down the stairs.
It’s Agent Jones. I’m surprised. I haven’t seen him or Agent Hunt since they turned me and Barron over to the Licensed Minority Division. He looks unchanged—dark suit, mirrored sunglasses. The only difference I detect is that his pasty skin looks red across his cheeks, like sunburn or maybe windburn. He’s standing in the doorway, shoulder against the frame like he’s going to push his way in. Grandad obviously hasn’t invited him over the threshold.
“Oh, hey,” I say, coming to the door.
“Can I talk to you…” He gives my grandfather a dark look. “Outside?”
