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Marty stared, glancing between us, but I couldn’t meet his eyes. The guilt was like a boulder sitting on my shoulders, crushing me with its weight.
Marty squared his shoulders, and faced the Fury. “Lacey? What is going on? What are you doing to Poppy?” He paused and then frowned. “And what in the heck are you?”
How he even recognized her, I had no idea. And how he wasn’t terrified by her, I had no idea either.
Alecto’s voice softened, her wings curling closer to her body. “I’m here to help you, Marty.”
“Then stop doing whatever it is you’re doing,” he insisted.
She frowned. “This woman hurt you. She stomped on your heart; she caused you pain. I’m here to make her pay for it, to ensure retribution is served.”
Marty flinched, his whole-body recoiling. “What? No! I don’t want you to do anything to her! I want you to leave her alone.”
Alecto froze, blinking in surprise. “What did you say?”
“Leave her alone.” A step to the side put him between Alecto and me, so I had to peer over Marty’s shoulder to see her. “Poppy didn’t do anything wrong.”
“The weight of her guilt would say otherwise.”
He cocked his head to the side but continued shaking it. “Yeah, it sucks. Of course it does.” He raked a hand through his hair, making it stand up in sandy blonde spikes. “I’m sad it didn’t work out between us, of course, but she’s still my best friend and you aren’t going to touch a hair on her head.”
Alecto blinked and looked a little dumbfounded. It was the most human gesture I’d seen her make since she’d dropped her human disguise.
“I don’t think you understand,” she said slowly, watching Marty. “She hurt you. She led you on, deliberately. She took your ring, made a promise to you, and then threw it back in your face. She has to pay for that.”
I’d known Marty since the day I’d moved to Haven Hollow, nearly three years ago. I could remember it like it was only yesterday when he’d showed up on my doorstep to introduce himself and welcome me to town. I knew him, and I’d seen him experience a lot of emotions; joy, worry, sadness unfortunately, excitement, and even fear after that one horror movie with the clown of all things. I’d never seen him angry though. But right then, he was furious.
“No,” he said, low and angry, his hands fisted at his sides. “She doesn’t. It didn’t work out between us, but that isn’t a crime. So, you do not come here and try to hurt someone I care about, and then have the absolute gall to say you’re doing it on my behalf.”
Alecto gaped and fell back a step when Marty took a single stride forward.
He jabbed a finger at her. “Leave. Go away. I don’t want this. I don’t want your revenge, and I don’t want you in my town any longer.”
The air lightened, and it was suddenly easier to breathe as Alecto’s terrifying aura lifted. The terrible gravity of my guilt began to lighten as well, and I sucked in a shaking breath as the fury scowled at Marty. The expression didn’t have the same vicious edge it had had before. She folded her arms across her chest as her tattered shift rustled in the breeze.
“You will regret this,” she told Marty, as fresh bloody tears slowly streaked over her cheeks.
Marty’s jaw tightened, hard enough that I could see the jump of the muscles in his jaw. “I won’t,” he told her.
The fury gave him one last look, and then folded her wings around herself tightly.
Between one blink and the next, she was gone.
I couldn’t hold back any longer. I threw myself at Marty and hugged him tight, feeling the familiar warmth fold around me as I sobbed into his shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” I managed. “I never meant to hurt you. I’m so sorry.”
Marty didn’t push me away or step back. He folded his arms around me, soft and warm and comfortable, just like always. And he held me.
“I know.” He patted my shoulder. “I know, Pops. And no matter what, we’ll always be friends.” His smile was a little sad, but had most of its sparkle back. “It’s just going to take a little time to get back to where we were.”
“Okay.” Some of the clawing desperation eased, and I felt like I could take a full breath for the first time in weeks. “Okay.”
My head pounded, the front curve of my skull feeling tender. There were little burns on my shoulders where my tank top hadn’t protected me from the ashes, and I’d scraped my palms, and my knee felt bruised though I couldn’t for the life of me remember when I’d hurt it, but I still felt good. Lighter somehow. I felt like a terribly infected wound had been lanced and was finally healing.
I took a step back, and people converged on me, with Wanda and Andre leading the charge. Everyone was asking what the heck had just happened, and I tried to tell them as much as I could—which wasn’t really that much. Prior to this moment, I hadn’t even known furies were a thing.
Wanda propped her fists onto her hips and glared at me. “I can’t leave you alone for a second. How the spell does someone get into trouble at a festival? And, furthermore, how in the world did you manage to call down a vengeance spirit on yourself?”
