I glare at him.
“Fighting me is the only way you’re going to learn. I’m the only teacher you’re ever going to have, so you’re just going to have to get over yourself.”
He shakes his head. “No, I don’t. I’ll fight Ryker until the others get their runes. Then we’ll fight and train with each other. You can coach and correct us, but none of us are fighting you.”
Knox crosses his arms in front of his chest, in athis is finalpose. I look around at the other guys, and they are all wearing similarthere’s nothing more to discusslooks on their faces.
“You all agree with him?” I ask, surprised.
They don’t answer, but they don’t need to, I can see it written all over their faces and body language.
“Fine, get yourselves killed or taken by some psychotic, power-hungry lamia, all because you don’t want to fight a girl. That makes a ton of sense.” I throw my hands up and turn to stomp towards the house.
“Don’t run off because you’re mad. I thought we were training?” Knox challenges.
I whirl on him. “How can I fucking train you if you’ve already decided what you will and won’t listen to, or do?”
“I can’t hurt you. I wouldn’t be able to do that. It would make training like that ineffectual!” Knox declares.
“Oh, but I can hurt you, and that’s fine because it’s making you stronger. What’s the word you used? Oh, that’s right, I’m tempering you.”
“That’s different, Vinna. You’re not actually searing the runes into us. Hitting you or actually trying to stab you with a knife is on a completely different level!”
“How can you look at my runes as a good thing, but not see training with me the same way? If you get a hit in, then I’ll learn to keep that from happening again. It’s not like we don’t have a healer. Nothing is permanent; it’s just pain, and temporary pain at that!”
“I just can’t fucking do that, Vinna; why are you pushing for it? Are you seriously mad because none of us are okay with hurting you?”
“Talon trained with me; I learned tons of what I know now from taking hits and getting back up.”
“Well, that goes hand in hand with Talon being an asshole!”
Knox’s words are spoken in the same calm and authoritative way he’s been using this whole argument, but he might as well have yelled them at me and then punched me in the stomach because that’s what it feels like just happened. I wait for a look of apology to come over his face when he sees how hurt I am by what he said, but it doesn’t come.
“Knox,” Valen calls out in warning.
“No, you guys all think it too, don’t even try to deny it. How much fucking time did he have to tell Vinna the truth? He never did, not until hehadto,” Knox turns back to me. “You were killing off lamia since you were fourteen; you honestly think he didn’t know? He taught you to fight, but why didn’t he tell you who you were fighting against and why? Don’t make him a martyr when he wasn’t, Vinna.”
Knox’s statements echo some of my own frustrations, but it sounds so much more vicious coming out of his mouth than it does in my head. He didn’t know Talon. Maybe I didn’t either, but it’s killing me to know that these guys think so poorly of him. They don’t know what he saved me from or helped me become. My eyes fall on Sabin.
“Where are Talon’s ashes?”
“I put them in your room. They’re in a green fabric box next to Laiken’s box.”
I nod and turn to walk away.
“All of you come with me, please,” I call over my shoulder as I make my way back into house.
I grab a bag from my closet and the walk over to the shelf that holds the two boxes. I set Talon’s box in first and then Laiken’s on top of it before I close up the bag and position it on my back.
It’s time to say goodbye.
35
The rumble of the ATVs all around me blocks out the sounds of nature that greeted me the first time I was here, but the little white flowers sprinkled throughout the unkempt grass still feels like a happy hello. A slight breeze carries strands of my hair out towards the cliff’s edge, where the dark lake sparkles back at me.
I turn the ATV off and climb down as the other guys all pull up around me. I tuck the map that I had the sisters draw me into my back pocket, and I watch all the guys climb off their ATVs and glance around at our surroundings. I walk out into the welcoming flower-sprinkled grass and open my bag to pull out Laiken’s box. I decided on the way over here that Laiken should go first to her final resting place amongst the wildflowers that feel free and peaceful in a way I don’t think Laiken ever did.
The guys keep their distance, staying quiet and watchful. I know Knox’s words are floating around everyone’s mind. Maybe they’re not sure what to say, or if I’m interested in hearing it, or maybe they can feel my need for peace, but up to this point no one has questioned what I’m doing, and I’m grateful for that.
