Which is ridiculous, because you don’t even know me.
Not really.
—Reva
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
REVA
I tellmyself I can handle anything, and then the past crawls out of the dark and proves me wrong.
It always comes slick and silent, clinging with sharp, silken claws. I’ve lived with it long enough that I know its shape now. It doesn’t bite the way it used to.
That would almost be worse.
Pain you expect becomes a companion. It’s not comfortable. Never welcome. But it’s familiar enough that you stop flinching before it strikes.
This, though…Ever and Shiloh have knocked me so off-balance I don’t know what I’m doing anymore. I don’t even feel like myself.
I keep my head down through the rest of closing, say as little as possible, and let the noise of Noir wash over me without sticking. By the time we get back to the house, the weight of the night is pressing behind my eyes.
The house itself feels wrong in a way that still tugs at me.
It’s too southern-grand. Too old. There are too many rooms and shadows and polished surfaces holding onto secrets. White columns. Broad porches. Long hallways that creak in places as if they’re warning you. It isn’t a home so much as an inheritance with teeth.
This was me, a long time ago, but it’s a me I don’t even remember, and it’s a me I don’t want to remember. I buried that little girl when we buried my parents and my twin sister, and the only resurrection I’m looking for now is the ghost of their killer.
Him I’ll happily look in the eye—right before I lay him to rest again, this time for good.
The guest room they put me in is bigger than the apartment I had with Cal growing up, after he took me to Chicago.
That thought alone is enough to sour my stomach.
I told Sonny I was from Virginia, but I was born here, right outside New Orleans. I’ve caught myself several times slipping almost unconsciously into the unique rhythms of my childhood accent.
As long as it’s been since I’ve been here, it still feels like home.
I shut the bedroom door behind me and slide the lock, even though I know it’s more decorative than defensive. The old brass latch clicks into place with more ceremony than function. A hard jiggle would send it loose again.
It’s a courtesy lock. A pretend boundary. It won’t stop anyone in this house if they decide they want in. But it gives me one thing I can still claim.
Choice.
“Damnitall to hell.”
The words come out in one thin breath as I lean back against the door. Emotional overload is a real thing.
I drag my fingers through my ponytail, trying to loosen the knots the humidity and bar heat turned into a snarl. The elastic catches. I yank it free anyway, hissing when it takes hair with it.
I’m shaky all over. My shirt clings to my skin from the shift, from the kitchen heat, from the not-kiss with Ever that absolutely counted as a kiss no matter how I try to frame it.
“Such a fucking idiot,” I mutter, toeing off my shoes. “You kissed the boss on the clock.”
I stop.
“No.” I scrub both hands down my face. “No. He kissed me.”
The correction feels better for all of half a second. Then I remember Shiloh, standing in the shadows, watching. It was like helikedseeing us kiss.
