Chapter 16 #3
A new world order. Deviants infesting our world and using it however they please. Using us however they please. “I guess if the deviants killed off all the mortals there would be no one left to abuse.”
“Or to drink from, or flesh to eat, or souls to steal.” His brow lifts with violent promise.
“And he thinks my mom would help him, what…keep mortals in line?”
“She is the DA,” Deacon muses. “Hey look, you kept some secrets too. Never told me you were the daughter of the soon-to-be mayor of our city.”
“Why would I have told you anything?”
He frowns at me like this may be true but still irritates him. “Your mom…” It’s unlike Deacon not to finish a sentence. He’s not a stammerer or a stumbler of words. I remain quiet and allow him to finish whatever he’s trying to say. “Tough cookie?”
“The toughest. Fully stale. Won’t break down even in the garbage disposal.”
Deacon releases a tense sigh. “And she doesn’t know.”
“About what I am? Of course not.”
“And neither does the sister or the stuffy ex.”
Mortification descends on me as I remember our encounter with James. I tuck my head into the wallpaper. “I cannot believe you told James we were sleeping together.”
“I can’t believe you dated such a tightly wound loser. Or I guess I can. You are dating Reid.” I open my mouth to argue but he continues. “Just admit it. That guy never got you off. Not once. A creature like you? I’d bet my right hand.”
I’d love to lie to him, and I’d really love to slice his hand off, but even Sophia knows James and I were not sexually compatible. And I get the strange feeling sometimes that Deacon can read me better than I give him credit for. It would be the most humiliating lie to be caught in.
I decide to pivot. “Never had that problem with your brother.”
Deacon makes a face like he just caught his parents watching porn. “I’m scarred by that information.”
“Ask gross questions, earn gross answers.”
“So your ex sucks, your family doesn’t get you…Why even go to these bullshit parties?”
“What are you suggesting?”
He shrugs, as if it’s the easiest thing in the world. “My dad was a jerk too. One day when I’d had enough, I stopped doing what he asked me to and never spoke to the guy again. Wasn’t that hard.”
I hop from the counter, done with this discussion. My head is pulsing, and my one nice dress is stained with demon blood. I’m still reeling from discovering the High Thane’s identity, and the last thing I need is familial advice from Deacon Graveheart. “They’re my family.”
“Family doesn’t mean you can treat each other like feces. You’re an adult, Vivienne. You can opt out.”
Despite the way my knees have begun to tremble, I stand my ground.
Reid understood my struggle. The obligation, being the black sheep, never feeling good enough—that shared pain was one of the reasons I found myself falling in love with him.
“That’s where you’re wrong. You may have no problem opting out from your own flesh and blood, but even Reid—who left the Brood behind and hated your guts—kept some lifelong secret for you.
Told me you were dead when you clearly weren’t.
Your family are the only people who are always there for you, whether it’s obligation or not. ”
Whatever I’ve just said ignites something like true fury in Deacon’s eyes. “Allowing those pod people to treat you atrociously under the guise of connection is…I don’t know much, but I do know torture. That’s self-flagellation, what you’re doing out there.”
He takes a breath.
“You care if they like you because you don’t like you. You want to prove them wrong because you hope it’ll prove what you think about yourself wrong. That’s what you and my brother had in common. That’s the grand connection you’re so committed to. Self-loathing.”
The truth in his words is a knife to the gut. I knew Reid and I were similar. I knew I struggled with being a hunter and he with being a demon, but to reduce our entire relationship to my need not to feel so alone…
“The only thing my brother hates more than himself is every other deviant who exists. Including me. So forgive me for not wanting a connection with my family that will only lead to pain and judgment. I guess I don’t hate myself the way my brother does. You shouldn’t, either, Vivienne.”
Deacon gives me one last look before he leaves the bathroom with an agitated sigh.
But I can’t move. I’ve never, in all my time hiding who I was from my mom and Nora, seen it as an act of self-harm. Only self-preservation. And Reid had related—he knew what it was like to never feel good enough. To keep striving and failing. A struggle we could share.
“It’s not a burden to be what you are, Vivienne.” That’s what Deacon had said to me at the Manor. His perspective is like developing a sixth sense. A color I’d never seen before. A sound I can’t mimic.
The soft twangs of harp strings flutter inside from the luncheon and I shove aside the new, burgeoning thoughts. I have bigger fish to fry. I need to find Fiona.
She’ll know what to do about the High Thane hidden in plain sight.