Vengeance continued to slowly wipe his hands with the rag. “You don’t have any friends.”
“Why does that matter? There are still men to be hunted down for doing evil to an innocent.”
He drew a long breath in through his nose. “I can feel your rage, but it tastes odd,” he mused. “This person isn’t a friend. They aren’t a wraith. They’re something more. Something new.”
I reacted without thinking. “You can’t have her!”
Vengeance’s only reaction to my angry outburst was to turn and walk to a counter with a sink. Unsure what else to do, I followed him. Silence continued until he’d meticulously washed the grease from his hands, even using a special brush to scrub under his nails.
“Are you going to help me or not?” I burst out, unable to handle the quiet any longer. “I’ll tell you about Willow, but I don’t want you to go near her.”
Drying his hands with a paper towel, he turned to face me. “You afraid I’m going to steal your new toy?”
Rage made me act without thinking. I grabbed Vengeance by the throat and lifted him into the air. He vanished from my grip and appeared behind me with a speed that was surprising even for a wraith. He shoved me hard, sending me stumbling several steps before I could regain my balance. I turned to face him, ready to charge again, but he shook his head at me.
“Don’t do that,” he said, his voice just as calm and unaffected as before. “You came to me. You sought me out. Don’t make me find out if I can kill a fellow wraith.”
His threat didn’t shock me. It was a common one with him. There would have to be something wrong with him if you weren’t threatened with death at least once. He had a gift for pissing others off, and I wasn’t the only wraith to ever attack him. His reaction was standard, and so was what I did next.
“You’re such an asshole,” I grumbled, shoving my hands in my pockets and glaring at him. “You love to fuck with everyone’s head and act like we’re being irrational.”
Finally his expression shifted into a smirk. “There’s a clinical name for it, but I don’t remember it. You’ll have to ask Sorrow.”
“Psychopath,” I shot back.
He shrugged. “Aren’t you one also?”
I shook my head. “Maybe I was, but not anymore.” I tried to think of the best way to describe what had changed with me. “I have feelings.”
“We all have feelings.”
“No, not like these,” I insisted. “They aren’t tied into my powers as a wraith. I feel love and joy when I’d only ever felt satisfaction and satiation before.”
Vengeance went perfectly still. “You’re lying.”
I shook my head, my heartbeat kicking up as I thought about Willow. “It’s amazing, Vengeance. There’s so much out there that I didn’t understand. Humans did such odd things and acted outside their own best interests, and I never got it. But now I do.”
Moving with the speed only he could achieve, Vengeance grabbed hold of my jaw. I didn’t fight it because I knew what he wanted. I opened myself to him so he could feel my memories. I was still a little worried he’d try to take Willow from me, but it was more important that I share what I’d found.
His eyes were unfocused, and he sucked in a harsh breath. “How is this possible?”
“I don’t know, but it’s real.”
Vengeance’s eyes refocused on me, and I was shocked to see rage. His hand tightened on my jaw for a brief moment, then he let go and stepped back.
“Why did you get this gift?” His voice was low and angry. “Out of all of us, why were you the one who was given this? You, who’s never wanted someone to love. The only brother who never longed for connection. The wraith who hates humanity the most gets to experience physical passion and has the heart of a human. How dare you get so much when the rest of us have nothing!”
I wasn’t prepared for any of these emotions and wasn’t sure how to respond. Something Sorrow had said rose up in my mind.
“Maybe I’m the beginning of the change that will come to us all.”
Vengeance jerked back, as if my words had physical force. The anger melted from his features, replaced by hope. “Do you really believe that?”
That was an easy answer. “Yes. I’m not special, so if this happened to me, it will happen to the other wraiths.”
He seemed satisfied with that. “What do you need from me?”
“Willow’s home was desecrated,” I said, then quickly explained everything. “Will you help me hunt them down? Everyone knows you can find anyone.”
