I just wasn’t sure I could make that clear to a guy like Bryce, no matter how progressive he thought he was. There wasn’t a simple way to balance the real world with his ideal version of the law and the paranormal coexisting. No matter how badly any of us wanted it.
“You swear this is it? No more trouble?” he asked.
I stared at him right in the face and said, “At least not from Timothy Deerling.”
Chapter Twenty-nine
Santiago was taken to an emergency room in a nearby city, since Franklinton didn’t have a space that could serve him. I wanted to go with him, to find out for myself how he was doing and what the outlook was, but I knew I couldn’t.
We still had two undead wights to deal with.
We took Santiago’s truck to the hotel parking lot, then checked to make sure he wasn’t at risk of dying. I left my number with the doctors and said we’d be back in the morning.
I wasn’t sure if that was true, but there was a lot of night left, and I had a good idea of where we might find my mother now.
The trip back to New Orleans was quiet and tense, with the four of us crammed into my Dart. I insisted on driving because it would give me an excuse to avoid making small talk while I focused on watching the road for wildlife.
After about an hour, Secret apparently couldn’t take it anymore. “Can we please talk about whatever the hell that was back there?”
“Why don’t you tell me, seeing as it wasn’t like it was the first time you saw it,” I snapped back. I had thought I wasn’t mad at her for keeping my former outburst to herself, but apparently I was more upset than I’d believed.
She leaned over the seat, her hair and face still streaked with ash. “You’re pissed at me for not telling you about how you blew someone up? Sorry, Genie, maybe I just thought that was one of those memories you were better off not having. But if we’re going to get into this, maybe you want to explain why you waited three fucking days to tell me our dead mother was still alive. You know, the mother I beheaded? Didn’t you think maybe I’d like to know about that?”
I pulled the car over to the side of the road and put it in park, then pivoted in my seat to face her. “I thought I could deal with it and leave you out of things. Last time I checked she almost murdered you, and that was with your powers. Now you’re just…” I trailed off, already hating myself for saying the words before they were even out of my mouth.
“No, go ahead, don’t let me stop you. Say what you were going to say.”
“You’re human now.”
She glared at me, and the ferocity of her expression felt like a punch in my stomach. “You know what I gave up for this,” she snarled.
“I’m sorry.”
Secret sat back in her seat and took a long, steadying breath. For a moment, or an eternity, we sat in totally silence with the two of us just feeling mutually shitty about the things we’d said. Neither Lucas nor Wilder said anything, I suspected they knew better than to get in the middle of a fight between two McQueen sisters.
“I didn’t remember what happened at the hotel until a couple days ago. And it when we were down in the basement I thought about what he’d done to Wilder, and to God knows how many others, and I realized I could channel the rage I was feeling. Rage was how I killed Morgan. The anger took me over completely, and it just became me. This time I took control of it.”
“Is that what you think you did? You controlled it?” she asked. “You can’t control something like that, Genie. It’s a power that’s so much bigger than you, so much stronger. Something like that lets you believe you’re behind the wheel, but you’ll only ever be the passenger.”
I stared out the front window and caught the reflection of animal eyes in the trees off the side of the road. Coyote, maybe, it was hard to tell from here. As if it knew it had been spotted, it turned tail and ran back into the bushes. I wanted to do the same.
“You’re wrong. Memere thinks I can control it. She wouldn’t have sent me back out here if she didn’t think I was strong enough.”
“I’m not saying you’re not powerful.” Secret sighed, and in the rearview mirror I saw her rub her eyes out of frustration or exhaustion, I wasn’t sure which. “But I’ve seen what these kinds of powers can do to someone. They’re old and unpredictable, and I worry the second you think you’ve got them under control, they’re going to turn the tables on you in an ugly way.”
“If I can put Mercy back in the ground, then it will all be worth it. It’s my fault she’s here, and I think I can do this.”
“We just saw you do it,” Wilder said quietly.
I got the sinking feeling that the moment I’d been dreading had finally arrived. He’d seen what I was truly capable of and it was making him question his desire to be with me. I’d long suspected we’d arrive at this bridge, I was just hoping I’d have a little bit longer with him first.
There’s nothing quite like seeing your girlfriend blow a guy up to make a man question his interest in a long-term commitment.
If he watched me do the same thing to my own mother that would probably be the thing that burned our little relationship bridge to the ground. But I couldn’t let that stop me. Love was love, and it made the world glowy and bright and wonderful. But homicidal mothers were something that needed to take priority.
Man, my life was fucked up.
When it seemed that Secret had nothing more to say about my methods, and no one else in the car had anything to add, I pulled back onto the highway and we drove back to New Orleans in a silence so thick I could have chewed on it.