Chapter 43 #2
“I know better than anyone how it feels to be an outsider in your own family. A world free of deviants means you would never have to hunt again, Viv. You could be at peace.”
“At peace? Your plan…It’s extermination.”
“We’d be saving lives.”
My stomach knots. “Were you saving lives when you delivered those girls to Driscoll, knowing they were going to be used as hosts? Kitty? Lyra? You helped me look for them knowing full well what their fates would be—”
“It was a sacrifice for the greater good. Everyone at this school has accepted that—”
“What about when you sent me to Fever Dream to die—”
“No,” Reid snaps. “No. Edgar did that on his own. I raced there to save you…” Reid’s features shudder.
“Viv, haven’t you been listening? I love you.
I meant everything I said to you last year, and every moment since.
I’d honestly hoped…” He shakes his head.
“I hoped we could do this together. The moment I realized you were the aeon, I started looking for something to spare you. I searched the entire Chasm exhibit while you were talking to Fiona!”
“Spare me? Once you found out what I was, it wouldn’t have stopped your plan. You were going to put the spell in me either way!”
Reid stands a bit taller, Fiona moving with him.
“I love you. I do. But like Kitty and Lyra, your life isn’t worth tens of thousands of deviants freed.
I think you’d agree with that. You’d give your life to save innocents, Viv.
I know you would. I’d hoped I could save you and wield the syrabraxa, but you’re right. I…”
I don’t wait for him to finish. To admit that for however much he loved me, if there was no way to save my life and accomplish his plan, his plan would win out.
I’ve snagged on a different jagged edge of his confession.
In the cottage, days ago, Reid said he’d begun to look into finding a way to spare my life when he saw the syrabraxa in my back at the docks. But we’d slept together in that Windsor exhibit, and I’d gone to talk to Fiona hours before.
The moment I realized you were the aeon.
Reid hadn’t looked surprised that day at the docks when he’d seen me ravaged by Driscoll’s spell. Horrified, heartbroken, angry. But not surprised. That wasn’t the moment he’d learned what I was.
The one question I’d never gotten answered—
“You…” I swallow the acid rising up my throat. “You’re how Driscoll learned I was the aeon. Why I was brought to the hangar that day.”
Edgar Driscoll, of all people, had tried to warned me. Tried to tell me with his dying breath that Reid wasn’t what I thought he was.
Reid stiffens. “Yes.”
“How?” Reid’s nostrils flare, and I wonder if he’s debating lying to me. “The truth.”
“Your dream.”
It’s not instantly clear, what he means. But understanding solidifies and lands like a boulder on my chest. After we’d had sex. My nightmare. I’d told Reid about the night my father died, and Penny had been taken hours later.
“You recognized the story. Realized my dad was the aeon Driscoll hadn’t succeeded in capturing. Reid…were you there? The night he killed my dad?”
“I didn’t know you then.” Sorrow carves his face. “I didn’t touch your dad, Viv, I swear.”
I can’t hold back the tears now. They spill down my cheeks. My chest is shuddering with each breath.
“You described that night on the docks and I just…” Reid’s eyes are wet and bloodshot.
“I remembered it so clearly. How Edgar lost the aeon we’d waited so long to find.
When I told him what you were, I begged him to wait.
To find some kind of cure for the spell first. Or maybe a way to kill you without killing you…
He didn’t tell me what he was going to do. That he would kidnap—”
“Penny.” I shake my head. Even Fiona has gone still as a corpse. “I told you how much she meant to me…” What had I said to him on the subway? She matters more to me than anyone on earth. “You gave him Penny.”
Reid’s brows pull together like of all the things he’s admitted, that should be the least offensive. “When I told him about Penny I had no idea he’d use her as leverage. You have to believe me—”
“Believe you? I’m going to end you.”
He has the audacity to look bewildered. “Viv—”
But I don’t care. Nothing he can say, no combination of words, can ever take back what he did. Forget me, forget the fucking Thane—he told Driscoll I’d come running for Penny. Put her life in danger. That is unforgivable.
“You’ll never touch me again,” I tell him, as more hot tears slip down my face. “Do you hear me? Never again.”
“If that’s what you want.” Grief cracks his calm composure. “Doesn’t change what I have to do. I need that ring to kill them all.”
The enormity of his plans—of his deceit—threatens to crush me like an avalanche.
“I never loved you,” I say, and I know in my heart that it’s true.
“What I thought was love…” The freedom from the isolation that had followed me for so many years like a slinking shadow.
That’s what I’d fallen in love with. Learning that I didn’t have to be alone.
“Let Fiona go,” I bite out. I should have said it the moment I walked in the door. “Or I really will kill you.”
I don’t know if I mean the words. In the deepest part of me, even as I see nothing but red when I look at him, I don’t know—
I don’t know if I can end his life right now. Love or not, I shared a piece of myself with Reid.
But he doesn’t have to know that. I take another step forward.
Reid looks absolutely gutted. Exhausted. Heartbroken. “Please don’t make me do this.” His scaled, rust-red claw wraps around her throat. “All I wanted was the location of the ring. I don’t want to hurt her.”
“Why didn’t you just ask me to ask her? You know how much Fiona cares about me.”
Reid shakes his head. “She hadn’t given you anything in months.
Her allegiance is to the Elders, Viv. I can’t just let Caspar open the Chasm tomorrow because you put all of your faith in Lisette.
” He takes a deep breath. “And I can’t leave here without the ring.
I know the Elders told her where it is.”
Fiona kicks and squirms to no avail as I scream once more, “Let her go!”
“Tell me where the Caspian Ring is,” Reid says, low, as he removes her gag. “I don’t want to harm you, Gemeline, but I will. Do you understand?” That soft, cajoling voice. One that had whispered indecent praises in my ear while he’d rutted inside of me. I wonder if I’m going to vomit.
“The Elders never told me,” Fiona gasps. “Viv is my family. I’d do anything for her. If I knew the location, I’d have told her. They’ve never said a thing to me, not in all the time I’ve worked here.”
My daggers are poised and ready. I’m calculating the best way to detangle her from his hands without giving him the chance to snap her neck.
“I know you learned something new from the Elders,” Reid says, voice breaking. “I heard you on the phone with Viv last night. I don’t want to do this, but if you tell me, I can protect everyone. You. Viv. Your wife, Nora…”
“Don’t you dare,” Fiona breathes.
I am wholly out of air.
Reid has the decency to look stricken. “Tell me now, or I’ll have her killed.”
“No!” The word breaks from me.
“I have no idea where it is!” Fiona cries.
“I have Brood outside your home as we speak.” The look in Reid’s eyes is as severe as a razor’s edge, and I know his words are true.
“All they told me was that the Caspian Ring is buried in the tombs.” Fiona sucks in a staggering breath. “But there are tombs all over the world. I came up here to do research. If I knew what that meant—”
But something like triumph sparks in Reid’s eyes, and I know he’s figured it out.
I sink to my knees.
“Wait—” Fiona wails.
Reid gives her one solemn nod of thanks and knocks her unconscious. She collapses to the ground as he stalks past me out the door.