With a gusty sigh, I slumped back into the chair. Under the weight of grief and exhaustion, I had little left to push with.
After a minute of wobbly standing, he sank back into the twin size guest bed and stared at me. “I worked for the council on crimes against fae. I came into contact with the Chief once at your parents’ murder. That’s it. I didn’t see him again until I saw him at the Office the day you took me in there.”
Another question surged through the exhaustion to bob at the surface. “If you were working crimes against fae, then which of my parents was the fae?”
I didn’t need to add the question: and which the mage?
“Your mother. She was fae,” he whispered.
“And there you go again, something you could have told me at any point. Perhaps when we were talking about my parentage, or maybe when you were teaching me how to use magic.”
“Look, Zoey, I’m sorry. I can’t rifle through my head to discern what I should and shouldn’t tell you on any given day. Please understand. I didn’t choose to hide the information from you.”
Gods. I wanted to believe him, but Fin had a habit of keeping things from me. Over and over, until he got caught and had to dig his way out of the lie again.
Why couldn’t I learn my lesson the first time?
I crossed my arms under my chest and stared him down, forcing our gazes to lock. “I’m going to ask you this one time and if I find out you lied, it’s over. I’m done with all this. With everything.”
He didn’t speak, simply waiting for me to say something, his chest rising and falling jaggedly.
“Is there anything else you’ve been hiding you need to tell me?”
His mouth popped open, and I held up my hand. “No, this is your last chance. Don’t waste it. Because we aren’t doing this whole roundabout again. I won’t be punched in the head with one of your lies again. Not only is it embarrassing, it’s distracting because it makes me want to throw things at your face.”
I focused on breathing through my anger, slowing my heart rate.
“There is something else, but I can’t tell you yet.”
Just like that, my calm evaporated like a bubble on a blade of grass. “Excuse me?”
“It’s not that I don’t want to tell you, but you’re not ready to hear it and I can’t risk telling you until you’re ready.”
A rushing sound filled my ears. I was two seconds from drop kicking him in his stupidly beautiful face.
I stood, trying to project calm despite the rage coursing through me. Without another word to him, I walked out of the room and slammed the door behind me.
The Chief stood against the wall opposite the doorway and handed me a long strip of wrapping for my hands. He didn’t need to explain himself. I gripped the wrap and headed down the stairs to the right, straight into the basement the Chief used for training. I’d spent more time down there than I had on the upper level.
My hands sho
ok as I tried to wrap them, and the Chief dragged me to stand in front of a punching bag. Then he took the strip of material from me and wrapped my hands carefully, methodically. A flash of him doing this the first time hit me. I’d been thirteen and dealing with the anger over my parents’ murder. He’d helped me channel it into my training.
The present image burned so much brighter. It had been years since we stood in this room together. I would not cry. Not in front of Fin and not in front of the Chief.
Once my bandage was wrapped tight, he turned me to face my opponent.
I took my anger out on the sand-filled bag hanging from the ceiling. The bag swayed with every punch. This was always the best part. The bag could pretty much take every bit of my rage and not change. Not shift. No matter what, the bag remained the same, and that was comforting to me.
I didn’t know how long I stayed down there. The Chief didn’t keep a clock in the basement. He used to say, ‘you stay down there until you don’t need to be there anymore, no matter what time it is in the outside world.’
The bag swung wildly on its hook and I hugged it to my chest, resting my cheek against the vinyl. Another wave of exhaustion hit me, threatening to drag me under until I submitted.
With shaking arms, I unwrapped my hands and put the bandage in the drawer with my name on it, still here, written on a white label. Then I lumbered up the stairs.
The Chief met me at the door, and I waved him away. “I’m going to shower. Then probably eat something and crash.”
He scanned me from head to toe in one smooth inspection. Then with a nod, he headed back to the kitchen.