“What would you call it, then? She said she was using me. Sheattackedme.”
“And why do you think she did that?”
“Because I never knew her in the first place. Because I was so pathetic that I believed all her pretty lies.”
Kit made a low sound as if disappointed before he released my throat and stood. He went back to his human form, and only the redness from my first hit showed on his face. “You aren’t stupid, Deacon. If you were, I wouldn’t be here. That means you are being willfully ignorant, choosing to believe what is not true simply because it is easier. Hera would protect anyone, even those who don’t deserve it.”
I wanted to argue, but Kit was right. I recalled the way she looked at the world, the way she tried to save everyone else.
Even me…
As soon as I thought that, I sighed and scrubbed my hands over my scalp. Hera had always been careful of me, never wanted me to take the blame for anything. It was why I’d never told her I’d taken the punishment for when she’d broken into the filing room, because I knew she’d blame herself.
“I’ve had a rough day. Could you just get to the point already?” I asked.
Kit straightened his clothing, fixing his tie and brushing off his pants. “We both know Hera has been setting up her own little plan, even if I don’t know the details. Clearly she wanted to go to the North Tower.”
“And she didn’t give a fuck who she ran over to get there?”
“That is your pride speaking, not your brain. What would happen if Hera got herself into trouble again? Who would fall under suspicion?”
“Me,” I admitted. Already, I’d been watched more closely, as if the Warden knew my loyalties might have changed. “If she got herself into trouble, I would be the likely person they’d think had helped her, especially after the last time she was thrown into solitary.”
“And do you think she’d allow that? That she would accept you paying the price for her choices?”
As Kit’s words hit me, my knees gave out. I all but collapsed backward into one of the kitchen chairs.
He was right.
Hera wasn’t the type to betray someone, to crush them for her own wants. If she did what she’d done, it had been to help someone. In this case, me.
“She attacked me in public and said those things to paint me as a victim. She wanted to take the spotlight off me.” How hadn’t I seen that? Why did it take Kit explaining it to me for me to see it?
Because I didn’t want to see it.
If I admitted the truth, it was worse. Before, I could be heartbroken and angry, but Hera was the bad person. No matter what happened, I didn’t need to care, because she’d screwed me over. She didn’t give a damn about me.
Now, though? Knowing the truth? Now I knew she’d done it for me, and now a different, far worse kind of pain ran through me.
“What the fuck is she thinking?” I asked, probably to myself more than Kit.
“That I can’t say. As it turns out, she didn’t let me in on her plan, either. All I can say is that she wanted toget to the North Tower, and she wanted to make sure you weren’t blamed when she went.”
“The North Tower…” I couldn’t stop the tremble in my voice as I recalled that place, as I remembered the years of pain and terror I’d spent there. It wasn’t somewhere I’d ever wanted her to end up, and now that she was there?
I saw no way to help her. I couldn’t fix this. I was stuck here with no path forward.
“So what now?” I asked.
Kit set a hand on my shoulder and squeezed. “Now we trust Hera. We believe she has a plan, that she will come out on top, that not even the North Tower is enough to take her out.”
“And if we’re wrong?”
Kit let go of me and headed for the door. I didn’t think he’d answer at first, but his voice floated over his shoulder when he reached the exit. “I suspect Larkwood isn’t ready for the hell that will rain down if Hera does not return safely.”
And there was one thing I could agree with him on.
Chapter Eighteen