Chapter 26
elaine
It took me some time to find the strength to stand up, my head spinning as I did, stumbling across the room and out the door.
I was dizzy and my head hurt, but I made it down the hall enough to see Vera in the back garden, sitting at the edge of a rock pond, seemingly oblivious to the rain pouring down over her, lightning strikes in the distance.
I didn’t think. I just went to her.
I raced downstairs and threw myself out the door, and I stumbled over to where she stared into the water.
“Vera—”
“I told Glenn that I killed you.” She didn’t even look up. “I showed him the knife.”
“What are you doing?”
She put a hand to her face, one finger running along her scar. “This spot. This is where I killed my father.”
My heart leaped and crashed down. I sank onto the ground next to her. “Oh, Vera…”
“It was self-defense. I’d failed him for the last time.
He was going to kill me. He’d already hit me…
so many times. I couldn’t see straight. One of my eyes was swollen shut, and the blood from my forehead kept blocking the other one.
It wasn’t that I wasn’t ready to kill him.
It was just that… I never thought he could be killed.
He was my father. He was invincible.” She squeezed her hands tightly.
“But he wasn’t. He died to a single bullet. Like everyone does.”
“I’m so sorry… that he did that to you, Vera.” I pressed myself gingerly to her side, my heart still torn in two about it. She was the woman who saved my life. She was the woman who tried to kill me. She was the woman who didn’t.
“I thought that was the last time I would betray my family. But I did it again.” She turned to me, her eyes dark and haunted. “I lied to Glenn. I’m hiding the truth from the Blackbirds. If they find out, they’ll kill me.”
I felt myself crying. “You’re putting yourself in so much danger, but…”
“It would be better if I died than if you died.” She looked back into the water.
“What do you do? You help people. You look after your family. You make kids feel safe. What do I do? I point a gun at people and pull the trigger. Maybe I should let Glenn find me. Let Quayle put me out of my misery. End what the Whitecliffs started when they tried to kill my whole family in one go.”
“Don’t,” I said, my voice small but firm, and it pulled Vera out of the trance, turning her to look at me. I took her hands in mine. “Stay with me. You don’t want me to die. I don’t want you to die.”
“Don’t cry for me, Elaine. I’m a monster.”
“You’re a human being.” I squeezed her hands. “And you’re my wife.”
She laughed breathlessly, incredulously, and slowly, her gaze darkened. “Elaine…”
“Yes?”
“You know how much of myself I’ve been holding back around you. You haven’t seen the dark parts of my soul. Do you really think you want to stay around me?”
I swallowed hard, and I nodded. “I trust you, Vera. Whatever happens now… there’s no one I would rather have to keep me safe.”
“So, what? You want to be a part of the family? There is no family now, though. Not for me. I’ve betrayed my second one, too.”
I took her hands in mine again, both slick from the rain, our clothes soaked through now, but I didn’t care about anything other than Vera. “Then we’ll make our own. You and me, and Caitlyn, and Petra, and Jenna…”
She scoffed. “A third family? I’ll betray that one, too, if precedent is anything to go by.”
“No. You won’t.” I put my forehead against hers. “Because this is the only one you chose. Maybe a family that will never let you turn away is no family at all.”
She stared for a long time before she crumpled, casting her gaze down to the stones. “Who knows?” she said. “Time will tell.”
“It’s—”
“Let’s see your sister.”
“My…” My stomach sank. “Is Caitlyn okay?”
“It’s a long story,” she said, standing up. “But physically, she’s fine. I need to tell Petra what I’ve done… and see if this time, she really does try to kill me.”
My heart jumped at the sight of Caitlyn inside the control room, tied to a chair, a gag wrapped around her mouth.
“Caitlyn!” I called, and her eyes widened at the sight of me. Petra jumped to her feet from another chair—it was clearly her shirt and jacket that Caitlyn was bound with, wearing only a sports bra and loose fatigues, and she gave us a wary look, reaching for a gun on the central table.
“Don’t do it, Petra,” Vera said, hand hovering near her own gun.
“You folded,” Petra said. “I knew you would.”
Vera stood on the other end of the table, her gun out at her side, the two of them cast in the light of screens from either side as rain slammed down against the window. “We need to talk about this, Petra.”
“I’ll say we do. You told me you’d be able to complete the mission.”
“What mission?” Vera said, and Petra flinched. She narrowed her eyes.
“Glenn gave us orders.”
“Glenn is planning to turn this city into a stockpile of the most dangerous weapons money can buy, and extort people until the powder keg he’s set up on goes up in flames. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be a part of it.”
Petra shook her head. “We’re not the ones who call the shots, Vera.”
“Petra, please,” I said. “Vera’s right. You don’t want to be a part of this, do you? You want to contribute to something you can be happy about. Something you can be proud of.”
“Elaine…” Petra’s face fell, and she clenched her jaw. “You don’t understand.”
“I understand well enough,” I said. “Let Caitlyn go.”
Petra relented, a little bit—she slipped the gag off Caitlyn’s face, and she gasped. “Elaine!” she called. “Are you okay?”
“Elaine’s fine,” Petra said, not taking her gaze off Vera. “The Wolf couldn’t kill her, turns out. The one and only person she can’t.”
“What about you, Petra?” Vera said. “Are you going to kill us? I’m a traitor to the family.
And you’ll have to kill both of us to get the South Yard.
You’ve got the gun. Shoot Elaine first, and I’ll put a bullet in your skull before you can turn to me.
Shoot me first, and then you have to turn to these two innocent women and kill them, one by one. What will you do?”
“Dammit, Vera!” Petra slammed her fist down on the table. “We were counting on you!”
“You should have expected it from someone who already betrayed her family once.”
“Petra, please,” I said, and Caitlyn shuffled her chair closer to her.
“We can all be on the same side,” she said quietly. “We can work together. Just think what we could do if we did.”
Petra looked between all of us before, slowly, she sank against the table, half-folded over it. “I think I know where the leak came from,” she whispered. Vera sharpened her attention.
“What are you talking about?”
“I talked to Glenn earlier. He knew more than he was letting on. A lot more.” She squeezed her hands tightly. “Vera… I think he’s the one who leaked about us to the Whitecliffs. Leaked the information about Elaine. About the house.”
“What?” Vera and I both exclaimed it together, but Vera was the one taking it harder, her pupils smaller, leaning over the table. “What are you—that can’t be right. What would he stand to gain from that?”
“I don’t know,” Petra said, voice gravelly. “But maybe… to kill you. To get you and Elaine married, and then if you both die… killed by the Whitecliffs… then he has his South Yard. And cause to bring vengeance against the Whitecliffs.”
“But…” Vera’s eyes flashed wildly. “You can’t be serious.”
“I don’t know for sure,” Petra said carefully. “But it’s what I suspect.”
“That… I…” Vera heaved heavy breaths, clutching at the table.
“So all that is to say,” Petra rasped, “yeah. Maybe this is the family I want to be a part of.”
I choked out a heavy breath. Caitlyn welled up. “Petra,” she said quietly.
Petra shook her head. “Easy there,” she teased. “You still tried to shoot me.”
“Shoot—what? Caitlyn?” I turned to her, and she looked down.
“I got into the database and found out about the Horizon project, the project to take the South Yard and build the arms depot. I knew they were going to kill you. So I took one of the guns and I just… I didn’t know what else to do.”
“She’s got shitty aim,” Petra said. “Which is why I feel safe doing this.”
She bent down and untied Caitlyn’s arms, taking her leather jacket and shrugging it back on over her sports bra, leaning against the table with the light gleaming in her eyes. Caitlyn massaged her wrists, slowly relaxing, as Vera and I matched Petra’s posture on the other side of the table.
“So, we’re doing this,” Vera said. Petra looked at me, and she nodded.
“Between that and killing these two? I’m ready.”
“Jenna will be on board, I think,” Vera said. “We’ll station here in this house. It’s a highly defensible location. And the good news is that if it gets out that we’ve betrayed the Blackbirds, then Whitecliff will have no reason to go after us.”
“Trading one dangerous enemy for another,” Petra laughed.
“I’ve never gone without a dangerous enemy,” Vera said. “And our goal is to resolve the conflict with Glenn and make sure Horizon doesn’t happen.”
“And to protect Elaine,” Petra said.
“To protect Elaine,” Caitlyn said, and Vera nodded.
“To protect Elaine.”
“E-everybody,” I said, blushing and ducking my head. “I’m not that important. I’m just—”
“You’re the reason this family exists,” Petra said.
“I’m a hostage here,” I laughed thickly. Vera smiled dangerously.
“You are,” she said. “But you’re a very valuable one and the centerpiece of the family.”
“So,” Caitlyn said, “if this is a new family, what’s it called?”
“Between white and black,” I whispered. “Between light and dark…”
“Penumbra,” Vera said. “The line between light and shadow.”
Petra put a hand in towards the center the table. “Penumbra,” she said, and the rest of us echoed it too, putting our hands together.