Page 102 of The Reveal
I look each one of them full in the face, like I’m memorizing them. There’s the moon-faced one, who I heard likes to beat up women. And the rat-faced one, who the rumor mill claims lit his mother’s house on fire. Whether she died before that in a wraith attack or during the fire, thanks to her loser son, nobody knows.
I used to be a lot more wary of them than I am now.
I’d like to see any of them go down into a vampire dungeon and emerge unscathed. To say nothing of a little girl talk with a death goddess who calls herselffate.
I have to remind myself that this isn’t about me. It’s about Gran, who might have turned out to be an oracle and not as impaired as I thought she was, but is still an elderly woman I can’t watch all the time.
I have to remind myself of that repeatedly as I come to a stop in front of Franklin Hendry’s desk and can’t really bring myself to do much but stare at him like the worm he is. And I know from worms today, having seen far too many in a bird goddess’s grotesquely changing face.
“I hear you’ve taken up with the monsters, Winter,” Franklin says, like he’s on close and chatty terms with people who know people and is privy to my private information.
“Everyone’s heard that,” I say, like he’s dumb. “I’m pretty sure it was all around town and the talk of what’s left of the Pacific Northwest. I’m sure I told you I was taking in renters.”
He doesn’t like being talked back to, or any suggestion that he’s a dimwit. His eyes go flat. “I told you it’s a lost cause.”
“It’s not Halloween yet,” I say merrily. “It’s barely October.” I pull my paycheck out of my pocket and slide it onto the desk. “Here’s a little more. I’ll need a receipt on that too, of course.”
The rat-faced one moves, slinking in much too close. The old me wouldn’t have moved any more than the new me does.
But the new me looks him square in the eye. Hard.
And he mutters something Iactuallycan’t hear for once, then retreats.
I decide I like it.
I ride that high through the rest of the unpleasant encounter and take it with me when I head outside again. The rain has let up a little, so I stand there a moment and breathe it all in.
It doesn’t feel as if I’ve seen much daylight lately.
I decide to walk around, the way I used to do all the time. I go down one side of the cute old town and back up the other, almosttoo awareof how human I’m acting. Out here on the streets of Jacksonville, smiling at my neighbors and the people I wouldn’t necessarily call friends but like seeing and would miss if they disappeared.
On a day like this, that feels like love.
I swing down one of the side streets, smiling at the yellow, gold, and orange leaves already carpeting the sidewalk. I’m thinking about the fact that I never made it back east to see the famous New England leaves turn and now probably never will.
When Samuel steps out of a little white house that has been many different shops and a few spas in my lifetime but is now where he and his sister spend their days doing town and human sanctuary things, I’m already smiling.
He is not.
And he doesn’t start when he sees me.
“Where have you been?” he demands.
It takes me an extra-long beat or two to realize that he’s talking to me.
And that’s when I realize something else, too. Something that’s shocking, or should be, given the past few years.
I haven’t thought about him at all.
24.
“Hey, Samuel,” I say, and I wait for that melting feeling to wash over me the way it usually does when I see him.
It doesn’t happen.
He’s staring right at me, and I look back at him and wait for my nervous system to react, but it doesn’t. I try to drink him in the way I used to, but instead all I see is ... a guy. A good-looking one, sure. He still has those shoulders and those green eyes. They arevery green, and they look particularly good set against the black of his brows and his hair.
But he’s just a guy.
