FIFTY
Phury left the Sanctuary first, and V had every intention of following in the brother’s shitkicker steps. Not surprisingly, however, the guy didn’t really want him around, considering the shade he’d just thrown on all the Chosen. So after they closed up the Treasury, V found himself giving the brother some space by going on a wonder.
Wander, he meant.
Although the former was probably more what this was, he thought as he closed in on the Scribe Virgin’s private quarters. With every step he took, he intended to stop and ghost out so he could make it to the Brotherhood meeting. With each increment of forward motion, he truly meant to reroute. With all the one step, two step, three step, four…he had another destination in mind.
Instead of going the peace-out route, though, he ended up entering his mother’s quarters through the retracting panel and standing in that courtyard. The songbirds silenced as his presence registered on them, and the longer he stayed there, the more those brightly colored wings fluttered and the little-grip feet shifted the wee things up and down on their branches—the aviary equivalent of nervous pacing, he decided.
V kept thinking about what Jane had said about her little sister. How the loss never went away.
Put in that kind of context, he felt like his mahmen had died at his birth. If he were honest with himself—and he hated to be when it came to shit like this—he had been missing what-had-never-been as if it were more like a something-that-was. And now that the Scribe Virgin was actually gone, he somehow had the space to realize he was mourning that which he’d never had.
And FFS, this struck him as a colossal waste of introspection: As much as he respected Mary and her whole talk-it-out deal, he’d never found any relief in dropping the proverbial trou on his weaknesses—whether it was in private or in front of somebody with anime eyes and a master’s in social work.
Way too many people cloaked themselves in the mantle of victimhood, creating a vacuum of identity that they expected the world to rush in and fill with compassion that was undeserved.
Although that being said, maybe he was just a defensive, judgmental piece of shit.
Probably. God, he didn’t know what the fuck to do with himself anymore. He’d been really all over the place lately.
As he crossed over the white marble, he stopped in front of the water fountain. Then sat on its hard stone outer rim. The water came out of its spigot and fell in crystal droplets that were always in exactly the same place, the spray like a pattern in cloth, fixed within its arching descent and utterly symmetrical—as opposed to how it would have been down below, all random twinkles and somehow more beautiful because of that.
He thought of the Scribe Virgin’s regimentation of the race: her mandates that covered the way her Chosen had to live and worship…her breeding program…the rules and regulations of the classes.
She had even forbidden questions being asked of her. Like, literally, no one, not even Wrath, had been allowed to ask her anything.
Okay, fine, she had kind of let Butch get away with it. But that was it.
As memories of her tangled him up, he reached down to the water for no particular reason, trailing the fingertips of his curse in the depths—
A strange flushing warmth hit his upper arm and he looked down.
The wound that the shadow had made in his flesh shriveled and disappeared, as if chased away, no remnant of its red flush remaining.
“What the fuck,” V breathed.
And then it dawned on him.
“My bullets,” he announced to the songbirds. “That’s why my fucking bullets worked.”
Back down at the Brotherhood’s training center, Sola burst into her grandmother’s hospital room.
“We have to go,” she said as she went to the shallow closet. “We need to go. We’re leaving right now—”
Her vovó sat up in the bed. “What you speaking of?”
“We’re leaving.” She got her grandmother’s clothes and wheeled around. “We need to get you dressed. I’ll help you—”
“I am not leaving—”
“Yes, you are.” Sola pulled the covers back. “We’re—”
“Marisol! What is wrong!”
The sharp tone was exactly what had always worked on her as a child, and her inner ten-year-old overrode her adult impulses, freezing her in place.
But she was not about to vampire the poor old woman. For godsakes.
“They are bad people,” Sola choked out. “They are…not good people, Vovó. We need to escape—”
“What do you say.” Her grandmother made a dismissive sound in the back of her throat. “They treat us good. They treat us—”
“I’m not arguing with you about this.”
“Good. Then we are no going!”
Sola closed her eyes. “Yes, we are. You have always trusted me when it comes to our safety. Always. That is the way it works with us. And I’m telling you right now, we have to get out of here.”
Her grandmother crossed her arms over her bosom and glared. “Not good people? The night of your abduction, who freed you?”
“I freed myself.”
“Who got you back to Caldwell. Who took care of you when you injured.”
“We’re not going to talk about this—”
“When I was sick last night, who came for me? Who stayed with you? Who care for me now!”
Sola looked in a panic at the IV line. “We don’t know what they’re giving you!”
“You lost your mind. I feel better. I not going. You leave you want. I stay.”
“You are coming with me—”
As Sola reached out a hand, her grandmother slapped it away. “You no boss of me. You want to be idiot, go—leave. But I stay here and you no make me do anything.” Those eyes were fierce as a tiger’s. “I know bad men, I know bad people—I lived through more than you. I seen cruelty, it has been done to me. These people are no bad. They protect us. They help us. They heal us—and that man? He love you. He love you all his heart and you are stupid girl. Stupid!”
The English train ran out at that point. What came out next was a fury of Spanish that nearly blew Sola off her boots.
When her grandmother finally took a breath, Sola cut in. “You don’t know what you’re dealing with.”
“And neither do you if you think they bad.” Her grandmother made hand motions toward the door. “Go. I no want to talk to you. Go! I kick you out! You no good—”
All at once, alarms started to go off, the shrill alerts adding another layer of panic onto Sola’s already stratospheric base.
“Vovó?” she said as her grandmother stopped talking and seemed to struggle for breath. “Vovó!”