SIX
When Estelle and I get home, I motion for her to stay behind me while I edge the door open and flip on the light. If we’re planning on seeing Naima again, she and Axel could possibly be waiting for us here.
“Seems clear,” I say.
The hall and living room are still trashed from when Naima and Axel broke in to steal our vials. You let them go, I remind myself, as if I could forget for even one minute. And then they kidnapped Edwin. The guilt stabs at me. I could’ve prevented it. Estelle had warned me, but I didn’t listen. I was right. I knew best. When will I learn that I never know best?
Estelle drifts past me toward the couch and slumps down in the concave spot on the cushion. Bud’s old spot. His image runs through my mind, and I’m assaulted by all the moments we shared, all the moments that have been stolen from me, all vandalized because of this stupid ability. In this exact moment, the guilt I felt for killing Yogi falls away completely. In this moment, I wish that all of them would just die, just stop breathing. In this moment, all I want is the opportunity to kill them all.
Estelle curls up on the couch, and she’s so small that most her body fits perfectly on one of the square cushions.
“You’ve got to be exhausted,” I tell her. “Why don’t you go upstairs and take a shower? Maybe lie in bed for a little?”
“It’s been a long day, honey. I think I’ll just rest here for a while.”
“Okay.” I go over and drape the shawl lying on the back of the couch over her. The trapped molecules from Bud’s cologne release into the air, and I breathe in the potent, dry scent. I give Estelle a kiss on the forehead, and start upstairs.
But the sound of her gasping sobs stops me halfway. She must be muffling her weeping in a cushion or the shawl so I can’t hear her, but to me the sound is deafening, and it cripples me. This is too much for her to handle. She doesn’t deserve all this. I deserve it. It’s all my fault! If only I could free her from her pain. I wonder why it always seems to be that it’s the best people who are the ones made to suffer the most. How the kindest souls are the ones who constantly get trampled on. And how the evildoers always somehow seem to weasel their way into lavish and abundant lives.
I’m frozen in place, as if my feet are stuck in blocks of cement. Should I do what’s right and turn around and go back down there and cry with her? Leave her alone, I convince myself. She’s allowed to mourn, hurt, suffer. I just can’t handle any more today; my mind sorts out the truth for me. I just can’t.
With that I continue upstairs, open the door to my room, and toss my shirt to the floor. I wish I could throw it into an incinerator so I could burn away the memories of today and of the last weeks along with it.
“I do not think—”
I wheel around at the sound of that voice. That teasing, chalkboard-scratching, torturing voice. Naima. She’s leaning against the edge of the bay window with her outstretched legs comfortably crossed and her usual mocking smile.
“As I started to say,” she purrs. “I do not think that taking off your shirt is the most appropriate way to greet a lady. Did not your grandparents teach you anything?”
I don’t dare shout. The last thing I want is for Estelle to hear me. “Where is he? Tell me you haven’t hurt him!”
She’s completely calm. Not a worry in her world. I envy her in this moment.
“My dear Gavin,” she says, “did I not tell you that this could have gone very smoothly? All you had to do was hand over the vials and we would have left. Simple as that.” She frowns, her wicked eyes sucking the life from me. “But you had to be hardheaded. Had to prove something, did you not?”
It takes everything in me to not to rush her, tackle her, and send her crashing through the window to death. Don’t do it. Remember Edwin. Edwin. Edwin. It’s all I need to hear to hold me back. I kick my shirt in the air with my toe, grab it, and pull it back on. “Those vials aren’t yours to have. You think this is a game?”
She looks almost insulted. “A game?” She pushes herself away from the bay window ledge and takes a careful moment to tug at the seams of her trademark lethal gloves before adding, “Is that what you think we consider this? A game? Let me tell you something. This is no game. What we do will save the lives of millions. We are the past, present, and future of peace. The soldiers of amity. The heroes of harmony. And you decide that is not worth it? You think we are the villains? You are the ones who do not deserve to have the vials. You have decided to use the power for recreation rather than for the good of humanity. You are selfish, foolish beings.”
I think this may be the first time in my life that I’m completely stumped for a comeback. As if she has some superpower that involves paralyzing my vocal cords.
She takes a few of her usual calculated steps toward me. Her face is angry, livid. “You are despicable.” Then, suddenly, like a light switch being flipped on, a false smile smudges out her frown. “But you’re also just a boy.”
“I’m not a boy,” I blurt out before I can stop myself. Wow. Go Gavin! Out of everything I could have come up with, that’s the best I could do? Yeah—woo-hoo! I really just one-upped her. “Please just tell me he’s okay.”
She rolls her eyes. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, the lad is fine. He will not be injured—at least for the time being. But if I were you, I would be careful. I am definitely the more considerate one. But Norrek … He will not hesitate to slice the lad to bits and pieces if that is what he deems necessary. So with that, I recommend that you do as we say.”
“No! He can’t! The vials—I’ll give them to him! But you have to promise me that nothing’ll ever happen to Edwin, or to any of my family or friends—”
She squints and places both hands on her hips. She shakes her head at me. What is she thinking? They’re going to hurt him. They wouldn’t. Not yet. Would they?
“Perfect. If this were yesterday, that would have done just perfectly. However,” she grins, “the terms have changed.”
“Changed? What do you mean, ‘changed’?”
“Norrek has instructed me that he no longer only wants the vials.”
“But—what else could he possibly want? I thought—”
This time she walks right up to me. It’s the closest I’ve been to her without fists being thrown or weapons being fired. She smells of cinnamon—if cinnamon were a deadly, volatile poison. She raises her hand slowly and presses her index finger against my forehead.
“You.”
