Her laughter made my hackles stand on end. “That makes sense. Little rich boy is frightened of the poor side of town. It figures. Unfamiliar things are scary. Well, it doesn’t scare me, because I’m used to poverty and hardship. Something you can’t even comprehend in your Mercedes and your mansion.”
I pulled up to the curb at the park and turned the car off. Her emotions were conflicted. Behind her harsh words, she felt doubt and regret—probably because meanness wasn’t her real nature. It was an affectation from the hardship she mentioned. I took a deep breath and got out of the car. She needed to know about my past, or we’d have a lifetime of this. Many of them, maybe.
“I thought you were taking me home.”
I walked around the front of the car and opened her door. “I am. Get out, please. I want to show you something first.”
After a brief hesitation, she stepped out of the car and followed me into the pitiful little park, which was no more than a metal slide, two teeter-totters, and a swing set with one operable swing. Graffiti decorated the wooden benches set in concrete throughout the park. Litter from the trash cans overflowed onto the pavement, and all but two of the streetlights were out.
She shuddered. “Why did you bring me here?”
“This is where I met Charles for the first time.” I pointed to the bench closest to the slide. “Right there, in fact.”
“What were you doing in a place like this?”
I walked to the bench where I had first met Charles and sat down. “Looking for food.”
“Here?”
I pointed to the trash can over by the teeter-totters. “There, actually.”
Her horror and confusion blasted me as she sat next to me on the bench.
I gestured to the apartments across the street. Many of the windows were boarded up. “I lived there.”
She said nothing, but stared at me openmouthed.
“After my mom died of an overdose, her boyfriend would send me out to beg money off of people. A four- or five-year-old starving boy drew a lot of pity and could score pretty good cash. Since he took all the money from me and rarely bought food with it, I would come here to find stuff in the trash cans. That’s how I met Charles. He was here with a Speaker he was training. She was trying to resolve a ghost that haunted the playground. I didn’t know all of that, of course. I knew he had come here with her a few times. I noticed them because they obviously weren’t from around here.”
Vivienne remained silent, but her emotions were a jumble of shock and pain. No pity still.
“I felt the woman’s fear and came over to where they were.” I patted the bench. “Exactly where you are sitting now, and I asked her if she was okay. I told her I knew she was scared, but that she’d be okay. Charles figured out right away that I was a born Protector, and he hunted down where I lived and had me moved to a foster home. From there, I went for IC training at Wilkingham Academy, then to the house I’m in now.”
She remained seated as I got up and walked toward the car. When I turned to see if she was following, her eyes met mine, and I immediately blocked her transmissions. I couldn’t bear to feel her pity. It’s why I had never told anyone about my childhood.
“Let’s go, Vivienne. I promised you a ride home.” I lowered my block as I neared the car.
She stopped short on the sidewalk, and her fear flared. She spun around and looked behind her.
“What is it?” I asked.
She hurried to the car, and I opened her door. She glanced at the park again. “Nothing. I just felt something.” She shivered and snapped her seat belt. “I’m fine. It was just my imagination. Let’s get out of here.”
She was silent on the ride home, but I knew she was thinking about what I’d told her at the park. Flickers of sorrow and guilt pulsed from her occasionally, and whenever I glanced over, she was looking at me. When I pulled up to her curb, she turned to me. “Why a foster home?”
I put the car in park. “Because Charles already had an intern and I was too young to train yet.”
“No, I mean, why did he take you out of your real home?”
It was a question I hadn’t seen coming. I’d intended to tell her what was safe and leave it at that. I took a deep breath and put up a block. “Because my living conditions were less than ideal.”
I was glad I had blocked her emotions because her face said it all. She had put the pieces together. “Oh, my God. The scars on your body . . .” Tears filled her eyes, and I closed mine. “Are cigarette burns.”
The air stirred, and I looked over to find her reaching for me. She moved slowly, just like one would with a frightened animal, until she touched my face. Her fingers were so warm and gentle. Then, without another word, she opened the car door and walked up into her house.
NINETEEN
It was a party in full swing when I returned home. I would have been angry that they were making so much noise and mess in the house without my permission, but then I remembered Cinda lived there too now, and she was having a great time.
Maddi, arm in arm with Cinda, told inappropriate stories about Race, who objected and tried to tell his side with no success. Alden and Lenzi lounged on the rug in front of the TV, laughing at Maddi’s tales. Like a family.
I relaxed in a chair while Maddi revealed how Race hit on Rose every lifetime and how she and Alden placed bets on how long it would be before she told him to shove off.
“Hey, Junior,” he said. “How’s wild girl?”
“She’s fine.”
He rubbed a hand over his spiky red hair. “Dang, you’re tight-lipped. What happened?”
I shifted to where my shoulder didn’t touch the back of the chair. “We talked.”
“Why didn’t you bring her back with you?” he asked.
“I said she was fine, not over it.”
Lenzi propped up on an elbow. “She seems to be over it. She called Race, asked to be put on speakerphone, and apologized to me. Said she’d overreacted.”
“Did she say anything else?” I asked, praying she hadn’t told them anything about our trip to the park.
They shook their heads and exchanged glances, but no pity came from them. She had kept my secret.
“Go get her and bring her here,” Cinda said.
It was better to give her space right now. Better for me too. I knew she’d ask more questions about my childhood, and though letting some of it go felt good, I didn’t want to talk about it anymore. I needed to get myself together first.
I stood. “Nah. I’m going to go to sleep. It’s been a long day. I’ll see you guys around.”
Even though I knew there was no way I’d be able to sleep, I went through the bedtime routine: showering, brushing my teeth, and slipping into warm-up pants and a T-shirt. It had always calmed me to do things in a particular sequence. Routine usually made order of the chaos, especially the chaos in my mind. But not tonight.
For the first time ever, I had revealed my secret to someone else. It wasn’t inferred or discovered as it had been when I was removed from my home or when Race had stitched me up. I had given it freely, and it felt good. It was as if a heavy backpack I’d been carrying around had been lightened just a bit. Still, it made me uneasy. And while hiding it from others for the rest of this cycle would be a burden, the inconvenience was not as bad as pity.
I pulled a book off of my nightstand, but the words just garbled together. The restlessness was killing me. I closed my eyes and searched for Vivienne’s transmissions. She was happy and a little nervous. I smiled knowing she wasn’t upset. I wondered if she was lying on her round cushion of a bed unable to sleep, like me. Then the yearning started. I needed to be with her, I had to be with her. I rolled over and tried to get comfortable, but I couldn’t quit thinking about how she looked, how she smelled, how she sounded when she laughed, how her lips felt and tasted. It had to be the soul brand.
It wasn’t natural to feel so bonded to someone so quickly. I needed to put the brakes on. I didn’t want to end up like Race, with no Speaker for cycles because I let my emotions get carried away. I groaned and buried my face in my hands.
A light tapping sent me to my feet. I knew who it was before I ever opened the door. I felt her soul as if it were my own.
Vivienne slipped inside my room wordlessly, and I shut the door. Without any prelude, she grabbed me and wrapped her arms around my body. “Well, hello to you too.” My voice came out in an embarrassing, breathy whisper.
She stepped away and ran her hands through her hair. “Sorry. I just needed to . . . I felt like I had to—”
“How did you get here?” I remained by the door, gathering the shreds of my self-control.
“Race.”
That figured.
She wrung her hands. “Sorry.”
My heart had calmed to a reasonable rate again. “You don’t need to apologize.” I stepped closer and took her hands. “You took me by surprise, though. Are you okay?”
She was so nervous. Her emotions ran through me like a live electric current. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for the mean things I’ve said about you being spoiled. I’m sorry I was rude to everyone.”
“I know you are.” I laced my fingers through hers. “And I want you to know that I’m sorry I didn’t disclose that Lenzi was Rose. You made a good point. You need all the information possible to do your job. I’ll keep that in mind and be totally open from now on.”
“Smith is right. Hate is powerful. It makes me stupid. I overreacted. I just want to get rid of him so bad.”
“Nothing about you is stupid,” I said.
She shifted from foot to foot, fingers still laced with mine. “And Grandma told me what you found out about my dad. It sucks, but it’s also a huge relief that he wasn’t a complete jerk. My mom always knew something had happened. The IC should have told her.”
“They should have.”
She looked at the floor for a while before meeting my eyes. “Anyway, I’m sorry, and thanks.”
I pulled her against me, transmitting calm through my hands.
She took a deep breath, and I felt her emotions tone down slightly. “I like it when you do that.”
I smiled against her hair.
She pulled back to look at my face. “Can you transmit things other than calm?”
I lifted an eyebrow.
“We could have a lot of fun with that, you know.”
I pulled up one of her hands. “Your nails are black again.”
“Yep. School code says clear polish only. No school for a few days, so I’m back to being me again.” Her brow furrowed. “Do you not like the black?”
“I like you. Your nail color is irrelevant, but I like the black.”
She grinned, then took a deep breath and her smile faded. “I need to be the one to dispatch Smith, you know.”
I sat on the edge of my bed. “I know.”
“I mean, I’d be happy however he goes, but it would mean a lot to me to do it myself. Did you know he has killed Lenzi every cycle since the Civil War?” She strolled over to my desk and stared at it. “You are ridiculously organized.”
“So I’ve been told.”
“Are you going to bring your OCD into the next lifetime?” She ran her fingers over my perfectly lined-up files that were exactly square with the edges of the desk.
“I have no idea.”
She stood directly in front of where I sat on the bed. “Alden says you keep a journal so that you can track the ‘trends of the Speaker’ from lifetime to lifetime. That indicates we take baggage with us.”
She sat next to me, touching from shoulder to knee. “You have a lot of baggage, Paul.” She reached over and took my hand. “To me, emotional baggage is like a horrible rotten piece of something . . . maybe like an old piece of steak. You can keep it bottled in, sort of like putting it in a jar with a lid and leaving it in the sun to fester and rot. It sits in that jar, breaking down, getting more and more disgusting.” She moved her hand to my neck and played with my shirt collar. “But if you take the lid off, clean air gets into that jar and the moisture evaporates out of that rotten thing. Maybe ants get in and carry parts of it away and there’s less of it. Maybe it just dries and shrivels up until it’s just a little hard clump. After a while, it breaks down to dust. Yeah, it’s still there, but it’s not a slimy chunk of garbage stinking the whole jar up. You need to take the lid off, Paul. Let some of it out. And let someone in.”
I stared in her eyes for the longest time. I’d never seen eyes as green or as deep. “You.”
She ran her hand across my back, avoiding the stitches, and I thought she was going to kiss me, then to my horror, she reached under my shirt. I went rigid as a board.
I held my breath as her fingers glided over the skin of my back, pausing at each scar.
“Breathe, Paul.” She continued her exploration. “So many. Did it hurt?”
The panic rose to where I thought I would scream. Instead, I whispered, “I don’t remember it. I was very young.”
“Was it your mom’s boyfriend?”
“Yes.” I leaned forward and covered my face.
She got on her knees facing me, fingers still exploring my past. “When it was going on, why didn’t you tell anyone?”
“I thought it was normal. I’d never known anything else. I thought all kids lived like me. Honestly, I don’t remember much of it, and what I do remember is foggy. I was a little kid.”
She pushed me to my back and ran her hands over the skin of my chest. I knew she could feel the scars there as well. “He was careful to keep it where it wouldn’t show.” She shook her head, but no pity came from her. Just that warm feeling like when we had kissed outside her house mixed with sadness.
A tear welled in the corner of my eye and rolled down my temple as I stared at the ceiling, trying to keep a lid on my feelings. Then there was a sob. It sounded like it came from someone else, but it had come from me. I had never, to my recollection, actually cried like this before, and it was a painful, horrifying sensation. I rolled away from her, covering my face.
She climbed behind me and wrapped her arms around my body, and I suddenly felt calm. I’d hidden my past for so long, and talking about it with Vivienne had been a relief. Empowering, even.
I took a deep breath and focused on her touch, rather than the scars she was touching. She knew the worst of it and didn’t look down on me or feel sorry for me. That was all that mattered. This girl at this moment was more important than any wrong done in my past.
I rolled over to face her. “I’m really okay. I just got overwhelmed. I’ve kept it to myself for so long. It was the hiding it that was the burden, not what happened.”
She traced my lips with her thumb. “Do you hate him?”
“I don’t even remember him, really, only that I feared him. I was too young. Besides, hate isn’t worth the energy.”
“Then why do you hide it? Why do you freak out when I touch your back?”
I took a deep breath, trying to find a way to articulate it. “You don’t like it when people ask you if you need help.”
Her brow furrowed. “No. I don’t like it when people think I’m incompetent.”
“Well, I don’t like to be pitied. I want people to admire me or respect me . . . heck, they can even hate me, but I don’t want anyone to feel sorry for me.”
“You don’t think someone can respect you and still feel sorry that something bad happened to you?”
“I think the pity trumps everything else and diminishes the view of the person.”
“I think you’re wrong.”
I smiled. “I often am.”
She ran her fingertips down the side of my face. “You’re solid, you know? Even after what you went through, yo
u’re so well adjusted and together. I’m glad you let me in. You can always talk to me, you know.” She snuggled closer. “Which is a good thing, since we’re stuck together for a really long time.”
I propped up on an elbow and smiled. “So you’ll be my private psychotherapist?”
“You bet.” She ran her hand down my side to my waist and slid her fingers back under my shirt. “I’ll be your private physical therapist too.”
I stopped her before her lips touched mine. Her nearness felt so right, but I knew taking this to the next level could end in disaster. “We should address what we’re doing here.”
Her fingers paused for only a moment and then continued their maddening trail across my skin. “I’m pretty sure we both know what we’re doing here.”
It was almost impossible to talk with her touching me. “I don’t want to jeopardize our working relationship. I’m thinking we should step back and—”
She covered my mouth with her hand. “Nuh-uh. Don’t overthink this or apply one of your silly rules. Pretending I’m not attracted to you or that you don’t feel the same way would be a lie. Lies are what will hurt our working relationship.”
The smell of candles and incense filled my head, and my chest felt tight. I pulled her hand away from my lips. “Yes. I agree, but I don’t want to screw this up. It’s too impor—”
She jerked upright and her terror shot through me. For endless moments, she held her breath and trembled.
A crash loud enough to wake the whole neighborhood came from downstairs. It was followed by shouting and a scream.
“He’s here,” she whispered.
TWENTY
Vivienne threw her legs over the side of my bed. “Smith is here. Oh, God, he’s . . .” Her panic was so high, I couldn’t breathe. Another huge crash from downstairs brought Vivienne to her feet. Our footsteps sounded like thunder as we bounded down the stairs and sprinted across the marble foyer, coming to an abrupt stop in the media room entry.
There was blood everywhere.