Chapter 17 #2
Lifting his rag and twisting some water from its cloth, he glanced over at her. “So. Did you consider my offer? About training?”
Charlie slapped her rag onto the windshield and started to wipe it down, grateful that all the windows were closed and the driver couldn’t hear their conversation. “I did.”
“And?”
“And I’m considering accepting.”
“That’s great. We should start as soon as—”
“I’m considering accepting,” she repeated, stopping him before he could go any further, “but there are two things you have to give me in return.”
Elias rolled his eyes, dropping the rag onto the car’s hood and turning it in slow circles. “This should be good.”
“First, you’re going to tell me what you saw in Loki’s memory. About him and my mom. Everything you saw, I want to know.”
He raised his eyebrows suggestively. “Everything?”
“Ew,” she said. “No. You know what I mean.”
“Fair enough. And the second condition?”
“Tell me why you became a mare.”
His rag froze midcircle. His face had gone eerily blank, like the calm before a storm.
For a split second, Charlie thought that the storm might make it ashore.
That Elias would transform into lightning and thunder and whipping rain and all the emotions that she secretly believed he was hiding under the surface.
Was it believed … or hoped?
Whichever foolish emotion it might have been, it didn’t last long.
Elias’s rag resumed its circles. His face went from blank to wearing its normal sarcastic half smile.
He looked like someone who’d been asked about the night’s homework, not about whatever undoubtedly traumatic event had led them to become a monster.
“Sure,” he said, voice light. “I’ll tell you.”
“Really?” Charlie probed. “I’m surprised. It must be a pretty sensitive subject, if it drove you to give up your humanity.”
“It was,” said Elias brightly. “Back when I actually felt human emotions. Now I couldn’t give a dwarf’s ass about telling you.”
Something in his tone sounded off. False. But she let it slide, because she wanted to know the answer more than she wanted to push him on his emotions.
“Right,” he said, bending over to dunk his rag in soapy water. “Well. Remember what I told you about my family being killed?”
The way he said it—so lightly, so casually, as if he were asking whether she remembered what she ate for lunch, not about the murder of his entire family—was disturbing. Still, her heart couldn’t help but twist. Even if he felt nothing of his grief now, it must have once been enough to drown in.
“Of course I remember,” she said finally, dropping her rag into the bucket and sending a little wave splashing over Henry’s relaxed form. He shook out his beard but didn’t complain otherwise.
“Welllll…” said Elias, drawing out the word like a child who was about to admit to breaking a priceless family heirloom, “I sort of … lied.”
Charlie’s head whipped up from the bucket. Fury flared through her. “You what?”
“Not lied,” he said quickly, wringing out his rag. “My parents were murdered. That much is true. And my sister—I lost her, too. But she wasn’t killed. Or, at least, the police never found her body.”
“Oh.” Charlie blinked, slopping her rag onto the car’s bumper and making circles while taking in this new information. “Why didn’t you just tell me that?”
“It’s simpler to lump two different horrible tragedies into one?”
“I don’t buy it.”
He shrugged. “That’s fine. I have nothing for sale.”
Exasperated, Charlie dunked her rag in the bucket again, sending yet another wave over Henry. He squawked in protest.
“You need to get out of there, anyway,” she said. “That water is going to be filthy in a second.”
Henry pouted.
She chuckled, shaking her head. “You’re so nasty. I’m not giving you a second bath tonight, so you better get out while you can.”
Grumbling unintelligibly, Henry pushed himself up over the rim of the bucket and splashed down onto the pavement. He shook himself, sending flecks of water flying. Then he scampered away, probably in search of a dry rag to steal and use as a towel. Charlie smiled as she watched him go.
“Your bond really is remarkable,” Elias said, drawing Charlie’s attention back to him.
He too was staring after Henry, watching as the v?tte snuck up on the clear plastic box of rags under the welcome desk.
Abigail was manning the desk, which meant that even Henry would have a hard time getting in and out of the box unnoticed.
“I learned all about the human-v?tte tether from Loki but had never witnessed it in action until that night in the cave.”
“Right,” Charlie said, moving her rag to the car’s side windows. “Just after you stabbed him.”
Elias held up his hands, suds dripping down his forearms. “At least I wasn’t the one shooting people that night. That was all Lou.”
Fury flared in her chest. “Are you joking?” She thrust her rag back into the bucket, whirling to face him over the hood of the car. “Lou wasn’t even conscious in that cave. The fact that you can even say something like that just shows how completely psychotic you are, and—”
“Yes, Charlotte,” he interrupted, eyes sparkling with amusement. “I am, in fact, joking.”
“Oh.” She cleared her throat. “Right. Well. It wasn’t a funny joke.”
“Oh, come on.” Sweeping big circles over the hood of the car with his rag, Elias gave her a lopsided grin. “It was funny. I’m funny. In fact, I’m probably the funniest person to ever set foot in this town.”
“Stop trying to distract me. Tell me what you asked Loki for. Tell me what was so important that you gave up your human life to live as a monster.”
“I’m getting there, I’m getting there,” he said, flapping a hand. “So, the murders—like I said, the police never found Olive’s body. Social services put me in a foster home, but I ran the first chance I got. And I started to search.”
“For Olive? You thought she was still alive?”
“I did.”
“Oh.”
And all at once, she understood.
“Oh. Oh. That’s what you asked Loki for in return for you becoming a mare. To help you find your sister.”
Elias pointed at her with the hand holding the rag. “Bingo.”
And then—though she didn’t want to, though she wanted to feel nothing but cold hatred toward the boy who had betrayed her and tried to kill the people she loved—Charlie felt something melt inside her.
It wasn’t forgiveness. It wasn’t love. It wasn’t even pity. She didn’t think she could ever feel any of those things for Elias again. It was more of a softening, of cracks forming in the wall she’d so carefully—
No, she thought, stepping back from the car. No, this will not happen. She couldn’t feel any tenderness toward Elias. Not when the only thing keeping her from coming apart at the seams was her mission to ruin his life. If she gave that up …
If she gave that up, the fear, the panic, everything she’d spent the last three weeks keeping squashed firmly down … It would come roaring back to life, all at once.
She cleared her throat. “That was seven years ago. Did Loki ever tell you where to find her?”
Across the car, Elias shrugged as he twisted soapy water from his rag. “To be honest, I don’t really care anymore.” He slapped the rag back onto the hood. “I’m a mare. I lost interest in finding Olive a long time ago.”
And just like that, her heart froze again.