Chapter 4
vera
Safehouse was clear. Good. Even knowing it was this secure, I’d still swept the place with a wary eye, hand near my gun.
Just a couple rooms, not a lot of places to hide.
Once it was clear we were good, I shut the front door and drew the heavy steel bolt across the frame, and I sighed as I stripped the holster off and set my gun aside, throwing knives on the table on top of it.
“You can put the damn cat down.”
Elaine looked at me with that fierce look in her eyes. “I’m worried about both of you.”
Ha. First time I’d been put in the same category as a kitten.
Elaine was more the kitten here. A bit on the small side. Very helpless.
I wasn’t going to enjoy killing her. But I’d made a promise.
And you didn’t betray your family.
Killing my father had been the most faithful act I could make to him.
“Have it your way,” I said. “Lucky it’s a bit grown. Don’t think there’s milk in this place. But there’s some nonperishables if you want to feed the thing.”
“She’s not just a thing, she’s a cat.”
“Oh, we’ve figured she’s a girl, then.”
She stood up a little taller. “I know animals.”
She was an awfully willful thing. “Fine,” I said. “Pantry is around the corner. I’ll take care of this injury myself.”
“Don’t,” she said, setting the cat down on the floor and catching me. “Please,” she said, her voice soft. “You saved me life. Just… let me do this.”
Wasn’t… wasn’t used to someone looking after me. I knew how that ended up.
Knew how I’m doing this because I care turned into I did this, so now you owe me. Turned into again. Again.
Again.
Again.
“Vera?”
I jerked back to reality. Wasn’t like me to drift off down memory lane.
What did it matter if Elaine was going to try to lord it over me later? She was going to end up at the bottom of the river before too long.
Didn’t like to think about things like that too much. Even I had a little bit of a heart.
“Fine,” I muttered. I unbuttoned my shirt, stripping it off, and Elaine blushed.
“What—what are you doing?”
“What, were you planning on cleaning a wound through the shirt?”
“Just… I thought you’d put on a tank or…”
I gestured to my sports bra. “This is close enough. I’m not too hung up on decency, Elaine. Once you’ve killed someone, you don’t care who’s seen you in your underwear.”
She swallowed, looking down, still blushing.
Well, wasn’t too bad to know she would get embarrassed like that seeing a woman’s body. I didn’t get in the habit of having sex with girls I was going to have to kill, though.
Murder and sex made poor bedfellows.
“Just sit down a bit and I’ll be right back with you,” she said quietly. “Where’s the first-aid kit?”
“Bathroom. Around the corner on the other side.”
I watched her with my thoughts turning as she whirled through the room—first opening a can of tuna and forking it out onto a plate for the cat, along with a bowl of water, and then once the cat had stopped quivering and got over the panic enough to take cautious nibbles of the tuna, she took the first-aid kit from the bathroom along with a few clean towels, sitting on the couch next to me and looking at the cut.
“You’re bleeding so much… I can’t believe you were continuing like nothing happened.”
“Once you’ve spilled enough blood, you stop counting.”
She swallowed. “Can I touch you here?”
I let out a throaty laugh. “You don’t need to ask. I’m not a dainty flower.”
She put her hand on my shoulder, soft and delicate, as she took a warm, damp cloth and dabbed at it, wiping gently at the cut. I flinched a little at the sensation—the adrenaline wearing off now let me feel the cut more clearly, and it stung, but I relaxed my muscles and let Elaine help.
She had a strong but gentle touch, confidently wiping at the injury, taking from the first-aid kit to apply product, her blue eyes fixed intently on me.
I could tell she wanted to say something.
I wasn’t going to ask, my own mind wandering as she worked, her fingers grounding me as they held firmly onto my shoulder.
I couldn’t just buy the property from her. Inheritance was firm in that regard. But if I told her leave the property to us in the event of your death, she’d probably catch on.
There was a shortcut, though. Common convention.
“Can I ask you a question?” she said softly.
“Only if I get to ask you one too afterwards.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t already get the dossier,” she laughed quietly, and I laughed, too, pretending I hadn’t.
“Ask.”
“When did you… first…” She swallowed.
I knew what she was asking. But I wasn’t going to let her back down. “Don’t be shy.”
She winced. “I shouldn’t even ask.”
“Well, now you’ve started. I don’t like things left undone.”
“When did you first… kill someone?”
“I was fifteen.”
“Jesus,” she whispered, her eyes wide even as she kept working on my cut.
“It’s fine. I’d been training since I was eight.”
“To… to kill someone?”
“For general ops. Including gun training. We used realistic targets. Desensitization training. They told me one of these times, they’d swap in a real person for one of the targets without telling me.
When it came time to point at a real person and shoot…
” I held my other hand out like a gun, mimicking the motion.
“I didn’t even hesitate. It was like stomping an ant. ”
Her face crumpled, tears shimmering in the corners. I got a sick feeling in my stomach. Normally it put people away from me when I talked like that.
I’d been trying to avoid… Elaine starting to think nice things about me.
Not a problem I usually had to worry about.
“I can’t imagine… what kind of person would put a child through that.” Her voice cracked.
“I’m not the only one. Some people fall through the cracks. Some people live in the darkness.”
“No one should have to. Every single one is a tragedy, Vera. I work with kids. I’m a librarian.
I organize community events for kids just around that age…
and to think about doing something like that with a child…
” She squeezed her fist on my shoulder, closing her eyes, as she sucked in a shaky breath. “I’m sorry.”
Ugh… look at her. A little beacon of goodness. I felt like I might as well have been planning to kill that kitten, she was so soft and sweet. This wasn’t what I needed. “Don’t be. I’ve never known anything else.”
Her fingertips caressed my skin as she worked diligently on my cut, clearly just focusing on the motions to avoid dwelling on anything. “Weren’t your parents… didn’t they care?”
I let out a short, derisive laugh. “My mother was dead. And my father was the one who was training me.”
“Your father was?” She whipped back, looking at me. “He did this to you?”
For a second, it flashed back in my mind.
There were so many memories that burned when I held them, but the one I always tried the hardest not to go near was the rooftop, and it seared viscerally back into my mind at the moment.
When I saw the drop down to ground below, how I’d clutched the fence and cried.
And the raw panic when I heard his voice snarling behind me.
The burning, cutting feeling on my face. The sound of my own scream.
No.
“He had to,” I said, forcing myself back to the present. I couldn’t dwell on these things. “They were going to kill the rest of us, too.”
“Who’s they?”
“Whitecliffs. They killed my mother. Wanted the rest of us, too. My father wanted to protect us. Wanted revenge, too. But it doesn’t matter. Drove him mad, in the end. He was killed, too.”
Her lips quivered. “Vera… by the Whitecliffs?”
“No.” I looked down at my hands, seeing them, for just a second, as if they were covered in blood. “By me.”
“Oh my God.”
“Enough. I don’t want to talk about this anymore. That’s the last we’re ever going to discuss that subject.”
She nodded, her eyes falling back to my arm, where she was almost done. “I’m so sorry you had to go through that.”
“So, now I get to ask a question, right?”
“Of course.”
“Are you single?”
She snorted strangely, scrunching up her face. “I’m sorry?”
“I said, are you single?”
“Um…” She blushed, looking up at me with a combination of shyness and confusion. “Yes…? How come?”
“Interested in women?”
“Are you… um… hitting on me?”
I laughed. “A step further. I’m asking you to marry me.”