"Have you?" My childhood best friend shook her head and got off the bed. "Davy, this is what happens. We fight. We deal. Then we wait for the next fight. Why are you acting all shocked and bothered by it? Wait. I should'v
e thought of it before, but I didn't." Then she sighed. "You can't deal, can you?"
"Shut up."
"You can't." She stood behind me. "I can't believe it, but you were the one that lit Craig on fire. It's not like this is the first time you've had to deal with something bad."
"Craig wasn't bad. Craig was a nuisance. He didn't mean that my entire life would change. I did what I did so that my life wouldn't
change."
Her voice gentled. "You lit him on fire. You burned him alive, Davy. I was there and don't act like you were doing it to save yourself. You were doing it to hurt him. You wanted him dead."
"I didn't kill him. Those hunters—" My voice trembled.
"Those hunters ripped him apart, but he was dying anyway. He was already on fire when they got him. You killed him; they just made it go faster. You're going to have to do worse. You know that, right?"
Could I deal with what I'd done in the past? Craig had been obsessed and a vampire stalking me had made me go crazy. I won't ever deny that, but to acknowledge that I'd made the decision to kill him… I wanted to hide from that reality. I knew it was there. I'd made the decision, but what sort of a human was I if I could do that and then pretend I was still normal? What did that say about me?
"Davy, this is just the beginning." Kates sounded shaken. "I thought you were ready. I thought Roane had been prepping you this whole time, but he hasn't. You aren't ready for anything."
"I'm ready for what I need to be!" I shouted at her, but stopped when someone else knocked on my door.
Emily poked her head inside. "Can we come in?"
"We?" Kates laughed under her breath.
Pippa and Brown followed behind. All three of them looked around the room.
"You have a better room than me," Brown exclaimed. "You could have two bedrooms in this room."
"Three." Pippa gave me a shy smile.
Emily was quiet, but she glared at Kates before she sat in a far corner.
Kates' eyebrows went up. "Could you find a seat farther? In the next room maybe?"
"Kates."
"What?" She looked at me. "The girl's got a problem with me. I'm just pointing out the nonverbals."
"Nonverbals?" Brown's eyes danced between us.
"She glared at me and then sat as far away as possible. You know what that's called? Passive aggressive. I've heard that's not good."
"Leave her alone." I felt a headache coming on.
"Tell her not to glare at me."
"She didn't say anything."
"That's the point. Passive aggressive. She's being passively aggressive with me and it worked. She's got you doing her dirty work."
"That makes sense," Brown murmured as she sat beside me on the bed.
"Thank you."
"I don't like you. You know that." Emily glared again.