Chapter 12
vera
“Elaine and I are moving,” I said into the radio as we climbed into the car—my own car, right where I’d parked it, leaving behind the stolen car where I’d found it. I was sure it was bugged, but the path wouldn’t help them anyway. “We’ll need you at the manor.”
“Oh, what kind of situation have you gotten yourself into this time, dear?” Jenna’s voice was soft down the line.
“Just a few scratches. But the Whitecliffs have been one step ahead of us. We’ll need a physical evaluation, make sure neither of us have been poisoned.” I shut the car door, and I picked a white hair off my suit. Cat hair. “Er… any chance you know any veterinary science, while you’re at it?”
“Veterinary science?” Jenna sounded amused. “Don’t tell me you married a woman you met yesterday and adopted a cat together.”
“Just… bring supplies. I’ll see you at the manor.” I sighed, shutting off the radio and dropping it into the glove compartment, looking at Elaine. “Ready?”
“As I’ll ever be. Who was that?”
“Jenna. Blackbird physician. She’s saved my ass a few times.” I locked the car, started it up, and slumped my head against the headrest. “Can’t believe how much the Whitecliffs are all over us… I have no idea how they got this much advance intel on us.”
She turned to me with that intense, studying expression, and after a long quiet, she said, “I’m okay, Vera.”
“What?”
“You’re blaming yourself for Yulia catching me, aren’t you?”
I snorted, looking away. How the hell did she do that? Wasn’t used to people… figuring out what I was thinking.
Wasn’t used to people paying attention.
“Just annoyed,” I said brusquely. “Don’t like feeling… one step behind the opposition.”
“I’m alive because of you.” She put a hand on my arm. “So, thank you.”
Something clenched tight inside of my chest. This wasn’t what I needed right now. Having to be around high places already threw me back to that place… to the severity of my father’s expression.
To the little girl who just wanted him to love her.
I still had to kill Elaine. I couldn’t get attached to her. I’d gone this long without getting attached. I was going to keep it that way.
“Buckle in,” I said. “I don’t want to see what happens if we stick around.”
“Okay…” She looked down, a tinge of disappointment in her eyes. I couldn’t afford to feel bad for her, for having let her down.
That road led to caring.
And caring led to hurt.
We pushed the speed limit while we drove to the coast, and the sun was getting low on the horizon when we arrived at the old church on the cliffs.
A forgotten stone building that rose out of the rocks, it stood nestled between dense trees, at the end of a rough road, and orange sunset light caught on stained-glass windows. I parked in the gravel out front, and I led Elaine inside, watching for any sign of Whitecliffs around us as we went.
The wooden door creaked open as I pushed inside, gun out in front of me, sweeping from side to side. No sign of anybody. Just shafts of dusty light streaming in through windows, cobwebbed tables and pews.
“Stay on the lookout,” I said. Elaine spoke quietly behind me.
“You seem so tense… are you okay?”
Of course I wasn’t. I’d almost let the assassins get to her, almost failed my mission. I wasn’t allowed to fail. Even coming as close as I did was unacceptable.
And the thought of the cliffs ahead… I couldn’t stop picturing the ground giving way. Hearing my mother scream as she went.
“Just ready for this to be done,” I said. “I’m going to need about three solid days and nights with a woman to come down from this.”
“Well, way to get a woman excited for her wedding night.”
I snorted. “Don’t tempt me, Elaine.”
“Oh, you’re talking about cheating on me on our wedding night. You can’t stay faithful for one day?”
I laughed, a little bit of the tension dissolving as we made it through the musty air of the church, to the catacomb door. “I’m not good to take up with. There’s a reason other women aren’t clamoring to marry me as it is.”
“Is it because you don’t let people get close to you, or… is that just my wild imagination?”
“That’s the first of a few reasons. Second is because I’m a sexually domineering menace who likes to claim what’s mine in a way no one can keep up with. And third is because I kill people.”
“Oh, only three reasons. That’s not too bad.”
“I might not be the best cook, either.”
She laughed. Why was I joking and flirting with the girl I was about to kill?
Anything to help her let her guard down.
Or so I told myself.
We snuck down into the catacombs, where cold earth walls surrounded us, and eventually, we reached the hidden door: a compartment on the wall with an old book that clicked when I pulled it out, the wall groaning and sliding outwards.
Elaine gasped next to me, pressing up against the wall, looking out with wide eyes at where the cold wind battered us.
Open cliffs. A narrow ledge. A long way down.
“Oh, wow,” she breathed. “Where does this go?”
“A bit of a hike… along the wall.” I was more fragile than normal.
Normally I could swallow the fear and push through without showing anything.
But everything this mission had been so far…
I wasn’t doing my best. “Leads us to a depot where I can take a different car the last thirty minutes to the house. No chance of being tracked.”
Her gaze softened at me. “Vera…”
“I’m fine.”
She stepped closer to me, putting her hand on my arm. “We can stop here for a minute.”
“I’m fine,” I snapped. “I’m a trained professional! Just stop looking at me and let me do my job.”
She didn’t flinch. Her eyes were stern compassion. “Vera,” she whispered. “When you push on the hurt, the hurt pushes back on you. It’s okay. I’m here.”
“Shut up.” I choked the words out, not even recognizing the sound I made. Elaine brought out something in me I didn’t like. I covered my face. “Can we just fucking move?”
“We can go as slowly and carefully as you need. If we need to take breaks…”
“I get it.” I turned away, pushing out an angry breath as I turned to the cliff wall again, and I felt my stomach pitch, worse than before. It was dark now, too. The sun was setting in the opposite direction, a halo of gold at the top of the cliff walls and inky-black waves below.
The same two-tone twilight it had been when my mother had died.
“Fuck.” I collapsed against the wall. Elaine stepped close to me, her hand on my lower back. Right where I’d put mine on hers when we were confronting her mother.
“It’s okay,” she whispered.
“I just need… a couple of minutes.”
“Let’s sit down, okay?”
“I… all right.”
We sat on the packed-earth floor, breathing slowly. The cold floor helped ground me. Elaine’s hand caressing patterns on my back did, too.
“I don’t… get like this often,” I said quietly, leaning forwards. “Not even with heights. I’ve had someone hold a gun to the back of my head while I was half out of a helicopter before. Trying to get me to talk. I wasn’t this scared then.”
“Usually the fear isn’t as bad in the traumatizing incident itself as it is in the incidents that follow.”
I laughed hollowly. “That wasn’t the traumatizing incident. That was Tuesday.”
“You are… something else, Vera.”
“I’ll take it as a compliment.”
“What did happen, then?” She spoke it in a whisper, and I guess fuck all did it matter at this point. If I was going to kill her, my secrets would die with her.
“Already said we weren’t discussing this subject anymore,” I muttered.
“But I guess… one more for the road. Whitecliffs killed my mother. Didn’t do it directly.
They sabotaged the walkway. They were trying to kill all three of us.
But I was falling behind because I was tired, complaining.
My father stayed behind with me, trying to get me to hurry up.
And my mother didn’t notice at first. Not until she was far enough ahead the whole platform fell away below her…
” I shook my head. “It was along a cliff face. Not too different from this one. I swear I can hear the scream she made when I walk in… places like this.”
“Vera,” she whispered, eyes wide. I pinched my eyes shut.
“People die. It happens. We weren’t part of the Blackbird family, but we did business with them.
Knowingly. People take risks when they agree to work with a family like that.
The only part that gets me is just… knowing my father could have caught her if we’d been closer. If I hadn’t been… tired. Weak.”
“Oh, God, Vera.” She caressed her fingers through the hair on the back of my head. “You can’t know that. If you’d been closer, you might have just all died instead.”
“My father was good at what he did. Fast. Strong. Skilled. Good instincts. He’s the one who trained me. He could have saved her. But it’s fine. We make mistakes,” I said hoarsely. “Sometimes those mistakes kill people. So you just try not to make any more mistakes.”
Elaine wrapped her arms around me and pulled me into an embrace, and I was bitterly embarrassed to find that I was crying. “You were just a child, Vera,” she whispered. “You didn’t deserve that. No one does.”
I breathed slowly. The words were soft, unraveling something in my chest that had been bound too tightly for too long.
I didn’t like it. It made me want to hold onto her and tell her other things. It made me want to kiss her, too.
“Not used to talking about this shit,” I muttered.
“We all need to let it out sometimes.”
“Let me guess,” I said. “You considered psychology, social work, or both.”
She let out a short, surprised laugh. “I just… like to help people.”
“Which one?” I elbowed her teasingly. She blushed, looking away.
“I wanted to be a children’s counselor for a little while, but… I think putting those things in practice instead of just in words helps. Library programs that help actively support kids in healing and growth.”
“Ha. I bet you’re popular.”
She shrugged, picking at the hem of her dress, blushing harder. “I just talk to the kids like real people. They appreciate that.”
Not my favorite target to kill. Didn’t matter, though. If I could put a bullet between my own father’s eyes, I could do this.
I squeezed her shoulder. “Wish I hadn’t met you.”
“Huh?”
I smirked. “You’re too good to have gotten dragged into this shit. But hey. Works for me. Now I’ve got a wife who will listen to me complain.”
“Vera,” she laughed shyly, blushing harder.
“And not bad to look at, either,” I said, brushing my thumb over her cheek. She swallowed hard, looking at me through her lashes, and I couldn’t help sneaking just a little glance at her lips.
Maybe I could kiss her just once. Just a little.