Chapter 44
elaine
“You trust them,” Yulia said, sitting across from me outside the medical bay. Her eyes were sharp, studying me, but not threatening.
“I do.”
I could hear their low voices in the room, Jenna talking, Petra talking, Vera only talking in a clipped voice when asked a question. Sitting next to me, Caitlyn nodded.
“We all trust each other here,” she said. “I mean, we’re a family.”
“Hm.” Yulia folded her hands in her lap. There was still that thing I couldn’t tell about her, like she was encased inside ice, and even with the frozen exterior, I could see through it to something inside that hadn’t breathed in a long time.
“Vera’s risked everything for me,” I said quietly. “For us. She was… she was ready to die for us. Back at the South Yard.”
“She always has been,” Yulia said. “If I didn’t fear death, she and I would have killed each other long ago. But I am a human being, and I know my own mortality. The Wolf, as best I can tell, is already dead on the inside, and cares little one way or the other if she dies on the outside.”
“It’s different now,” I whispered. “She’s found a family now. A real one.”
Yulia scoffed, leaning back in her chair, her eyes flashing as she watched me. Caitlyn laughed nervously.
“So, uh… did the family just get bigger?”
“My loyalties belong to the Whitecliffs,” Yulia said. “But for now, consider me here… on loan. Our objectives align.”
Caitlyn folded her arms. “The Whitecliffs tries to kill her. You tried to kill her.”
“So you would do well not to think of us as friends, but as a temporary alliance,” Yulia said. “Your sister has a better sense for danger than you do, Elaine.”
“I don’t know if I’d go that far,” I laughed. Caitlyn did too.
“If you’re sticking around, you’ll hear how I tried to shoot Petra when I found out what they were doing. She won’t let it go that I’m a terrible shot.”
Yulia looked away. “Being a bad shot, Caitlyn, is a gift to be treasured. May it never change.”
The gravity of the comment settled heavy on both of us. Caitlyn looked down, and I sighed.
“Thank you,” I said. “For helping us. We wouldn’t have made it out without you.”
“What are you after, Elaine Whitner?”
She had such an intense way of phrasing even the smallest thing. It was… intimidating to put it lightly. “We want to stop the Horizon project,” I said.
“And then?”
Wasn’t that a question? I smiled thinly. “Then we figure out what comes next.”
She laughed, short and abrupt, but she didn’t get a chance to say anything before the door swung open and Vera came out, limping a little. Her ashen stare into the middle distance crystallized into a stern look at Yulia.
“Were you harassing my wife?”
“Vera,” I laughed, standing up with her. “Yulia was just wondering how we all managed to come together like this. It’s fine. I trust her.”
Vera pursed her lips. “I’d tell you that you trust too easily… but that trust saved my life. So just this once, Yulia.”
“Just this once. After this is settled, I may slit your throat.”
“After this is settled, I’d love to see you try.”
Caitlyn put a hand to her forehead. “Jeez, house full of love.”
I took Vera by the arm, whispering to her. “Are you okay?”
“I got stabbed, shot, gassed, and thrown off a building, but otherwise I’m fine.”
“Well, when you put it like that…”
“I’ll be okay. Jenna worked her magic. And I’ve been through worse. We need to talk strategy. Petra’s still getting her hand treated, but Petra’s never contributed a useful thought in her life. I doubt she’s ever had one.”
“Vera!” Caitlyn folded her arms. “Do you get along with anyone other than your wife?”
“Against my will, the cat.” And as if on cue, soft footsteps came racing in, and Clara yowled as she came around the corner, ramming her head into Vera’s ankle and rubbing her face on her. Vera sighed, stooping and picking her up. “Yes, I see you. I know Caitlyn fed you. You’ll live.”
“Unbelievable,” Yulia said lightly, standing up. “You met a woman, married her in forty-eight hours, and now you have a cat together.”
“Just because you saved my life doesn’t mean I’m not ready to end yours,” Vera said, which would have been more intimidating if she didn’t say it while stroking a kitten.
“We can talk about what comes next once we’re all ready,” I said. “For now, can I ask you something in private?”
Vera quirked her eyebrows at me. After a long silence, she said, “Sure. The music room.”
I wasn’t surprised when we got into the music room and she made a beeline for the piano, but I was surprised by the song she played—something simple, a piece a child might have played.
It was simple, a little bouncy, uncharacteristically cheerful, and then as her expression intensified, the piece did, too, transforming into a different song altogether, one I’d recognized her playing before, a dramatic Rachmaninoff piece, and she kept going harder, harder, pounding angrily on the piano, until I caught her with a hand on her arm.
“Vera,” I said softly. “You’re going to hurt yourself.”
She stopped, sucking in a shaky breath and closing her eyes as she let it out. Slowly, shakily, she went back to the first piece, the simple one for children.
“Tchaikovsky,” she said quietly. “Lark Song.”
The one that the little girl had been playing—the girl whose father she couldn’t kill. My chest ached. I sank down next to her on the piano bench, my hand on her back. “You’ve looked like something horrible is on your mind this whole time.”
She squeezed her eyes shut, clenching her jaw. I put a hand on her arm.
“Please… talk to me. I’m here. You’re safe.”
She slammed her hands down on the piano keys, hanging her head. “They lied to me,” she whispered, tears thick under her voice. “Every single one of them. Glenn knew… the whole… damn… time. And he used me. He watched me burn away for the Blackbirds… knowing full well… knowing full well…”
“Vera…” I stroked her back in the way I knew was comforting for her, and she choked on a sob, gritting her teeth.
“It was Quayle,” she whispered. “He told me… himself. Quayle killed my mother. Quayle did this to me. Quayle did it. Because Glenn ordered him to.”
My blood ran cold in my veins, and I felt breathless. “Oh, God, Vera,” I breathed.
“I’ve never felt this before,” she growled.
“I’ve killed people. I’ve done it because I had to.
Because I was ordered to. Because I needed to if I wanted to survive.
But I’ve never felt this before. I wanted to kill him.
I want to kill him now. I want to kill him slowly.
I want to make him suffer. I want to make him feel…
everything that I felt. I want him to hurt as much as I hurt, and I want him to die like I was supposed to die. ”
“Oh, Vera,” I whispered, wrapping my arms around her and holding her. “I can’t imagine… I…”
“And Glenn… Glenn.” She tightened her fists on the keys.
“I trusted him. With everything. With my entire life. He took me in. I was just a kid who had murdered her father, and all I knew was how to kill. He gave me a place when I couldn’t have had another.
A family, when I couldn’t have had another.
But the whole time… he knew. He knew he’d had them killed.
He knew he’d lied to my father, said it was the Whitecliffs.
Every time I turned up to do as he asked, he looked at me, and he saw…
he saw the girl he tried to kill, the girl who was working for him anyway…
and he didn’t hesitate. Not once. Not once. I’ll kill them both.”
My stomach turned, sick and ugly feelings on her behalf, and I held her tightly. “Vera… I won’t stop you. I want to help you. You deserve that much.”
“Listen to you,” she laughed thickly. “You’re supporting me killing people. You want to help kill them?”
“Anyone who did that… who’s still trying to do that to you…
” I shook my head. “You always talk about wanting to protect me. To do everything you can to keep me safe. I feel the same way about you, Vera. The things Glenn and Quayle did to you… the things they’ve done to my wife,” I whispered. “I can never forgive that.”
“Don’t fall in love with me,” she said, like it was a joke. It wasn’t.
And what if it was too late?
“I’m here for you. That’s a promise. This isn’t like the Blackbirds, Vera. This is a family that we’ve made… together.”
She kissed me, turned and crushed her lips against mine.
I gasped, and I leaned into the kiss, throwing my arms around her, holding her into me as she did—a harsh, angry kiss without any sense of care or delicacy, just taking what she wanted, and I gave it to her.
I arched my back for her as she pulled my shirt up, reaching her hands up my body, but she stopped with them at my sides, clutching her fists tightly, and she broke off from the kiss, hovering just away from my lips with her expression drawn tightly.
“Vera?” I whispered. “Do you… do you want…?”
“I can’t.” She put my shirt back down, and she buried her face in my shoulder, holding me into her, as she spoke softly. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
She wasn’t going to. I knew that. No matter how intense we got, she always made sure nothing was wrong.
But that wasn’t what she meant.
She didn’t want to hurt me emotionally. That this thing between us was turning as terrifyingly real for her as it was for me.
I held her tightly, and I whispered, “You never have. And you won’t.”
“You can’t know that. I’ve hurt everyone and everything. All I do is hurt. I’m a monster, Elaine.”
“If you are, then you’ll be my monster. And I’ll hold you as long as it takes for you to see the humanity inside.”
She laughed through tears as she held me. “You’re a damn fool, Elaine.”
I laughed with her, holding her just as tightly. “Then I’ll be your fool.”
A knock from the door interrupted it, and Vera pushed out a heavy breath, pulling back and giving me one more loaded look before she stood up. “What is it?”
Yulia’s voice was sharp and precise from the other side. “Petra’s ready. And aside from wanting to throw a punch at me that would have done more damage to her hand than to me… she’s itching to talk revenge. Caitlyn’s only barely keeping her restrained.”
Vera nodded. “We’ll be there in a second.”
She turned back, and before I could say anything, she gave me one more kiss, the most intense, loaded, and passionate out of any we’d had so far. Not the most heated or sexual, but loaded… differently.
In a way that was so much more terrifying than anything else that had happened between us.