I began to shake and Vayl pulled me close. I breathed in his scent, trying to calm myself as Teen Me yanked the doors wide open with a shrill screech that made my head ache.
As Brude’s attention riveted on a vulnerability he might be able to exploit, Vayl said, “Stop. You should not—”
“No. I have to finish.” I licked my lips, unable to prevent myself from falling back into that time, looking out at the familiar scene through the fear-glazed eyes of the teenager who’d joined the crew inside my head.
I crept through the living room, listening so hard I was surprised I didn’t hear the neighbor’s TV
blaring. A choking sound. An angry whisper, way too low to come from a girl’s throat. As soon as I knew Evie was alive and in trouble, I stopped feeling altogether. I brought the rifle up to my shoulder. Moved to the edge of the door. He’d left it open. Maybe he figured to find both of us in there. I heard another thump.
“Where is she?” he hissed. Evie whimpered, a sound that cut into my heart like a surgeon’s scalpel. The sounds put them in the corner diagonal to the door. In my mind I saw them standing next to the closet under the poster of Ricky Martin that Evie blew a kiss to on the mornings she was in a really good mood.
Next to them would be a waist-high bookcase Granny May had given us that had been packed with Evie’s books before she’d boxed them. Then her bed. It still had a canopy, which might block my shot if I got my angles wrong. My bed stood across the room, directly opposite the door. We kept our stereo and speakers on a narrow table along the wall next to it. The floor was cluttered with book bags, piles of clothes, and Evie’s purse collection.
I stopped. If the lead-up had been hard, this would be excruciating. But Brude had taken the bait. I could sense him looming, making Teen Me clutch at the door handles like a big wind might come and blow her away if she didn’t hold on tight enough.
“Finish it,” Vayl said, gripping me like he thought I might fall.
I cleared my throat.
I stepped into the room. It only took a second to work out what had happened. He’d caught her while she was unloading the closet for the next round of packing. Shoved her face-first into the wall so hard some of the paint had flaked onto the floor. Used the butcher knife in his hand to shred the back of her shirt, leaving a couple of bloody lines where he’d gotten too eager.
He stood with his back to me, but his face was turned to snarl into hers so he caught my move peripherally. And I knew. I had to act before he could think. Before either of us could, really. I fell into drill-sergeant mode instinctively. Because it had always gotten immediate compliance for my dad.
I screamed at my sister first, “Evie! Nuts!”
Her heel flew up, striking Bret in the groin. Not a solid shot, but still hard enough to make him grab at himself with the hand that had been pinning her.
“Duck!” I bellowed, using the tone Albert saved for only those dire moments when he thought we were about to pull some ultimately stupid stunt like running into traffic or jumping off a bridge.
She dropped, screaming as she went because Bret had caught her by the hair.
“You fucking bitches!” he rasped. “I’ll slice you both into tiny little piec—” His knife hand punched toward Evie’s back. But I took the half second I needed to aim. And when I fired, all I felt was the kick of the gun butt against my shoulder. I watched blankly as Bret’s skull shattered and parts of his brain sprayed across the closet door and the floor, Evie’s clothes, and Evie herself.
Without looking at him, she scrambled away, screaming so loud my ears started to pound. I pointed the rifle to the floor so I wouldn’t accidentally shoot my sister, just like Albert had taught me to do.
And that was when I started to cry. I’d made somebody stop breathing. Forever. Even after the police came, after the newspaper stories and the inquest, where people I’d never seen or met before cleared me, I cried myself to sleep. Not because I was a killer. But because something so horrible and final, something only God should have charge of, had felt so right. I had come face-to-face with my inner monster. And she fit me like a second skin.
“And now?” Vayl asked, running his hands up to my shoulder blades. “Have your feelings changed?” I looked at the window, like the world on the other side of the faded brown curtains might be different if I could give him the answer I wanted to.
“Some,” I said. “I know in my head that what I do is vital to my country. And I’ve saved the lives of thousands, if not millions, of people who run to the grocery and Wal-Mart and football practice, blissfully unaware that I’ve just offed the scumbag who wanted to turn their kids into nuclear waste. But…”
“Yes?”
I winced. Made myself meet his gaze. “I know something is broken in me. Not so bad that I can’t see what side I should be fighting on. Or where I need to draw the line. But enough that I’ll never be right. I’ll never”—I drew in a breath—“be normal.”
The doors in my head swung wide. Brude swept in, howling with glee. All he saw were the walls, covered in scars, some of them so new the blood was still drying on the floor beneath them. All he felt was the dull, unrelenting ache of hopelessness beating out a rhythm that sounded horribly close to the words, “Loser, loser, loser,” repeated with the conviction of an eyewitness.
I grabbed Vayl’s shoulders, dug my fingers in, and willed the tears away. Now. I gave him my fiercest look. Help me, Vayl.
For a moment he didn’t move. A spike of terror drove itself into the back of my neck. You said I could trust you! Don’t let me down, dammit!
Then he yanked me against his chest and in one swift move, rolled me onto my back. His lips met mine with a force that blew the doors closed on Brude. Every touch, every stroke, the winding of our tongues and bodies set another lock into place.
Between caresses he said, “Someone as remarkable as you should never reach for normal. I know the word appeals to you, but the existence would bore you into committing real mischief. If you change, I swear to lock you in my castle until you return to your usual strange ways.” He has a castle! shouted Teen Me, who immediately discovered a huge wooden bar that she slid into place just at the point where Brude’s relentless door pounding wouldn’t even bother me in my sleep.
I sighed. Relieved. Strung-out. And increasingly excited by Vayl’s wandering hands and lips. Which was when my stomach began to itch. I tried to scratch, but he pulled my hand away, raised the hem of my shirt so he could see the double-heart belly ring he’d given me surrounded by blotchy redness.