Last was stumbling through the raucous crowd, wiping her eyes.
“Last, wait?—”
I hurried after her. She was crying.
“Last!”
Then I shook my head. What was I doing? She’d just murdered two men, and I was hurrying after her to comfort her? Why?
I caught up to her at the curb outside The Other Place. It was after midnight, and the street was deserted.
I paused next to her. She had her arms wrapped around her middle, and her shoulders were hunched. She didn’t look my way, and she’d stopped wiping the tears from her cheeks.
“There was a picture of my mother. The only one I had. It burned up . . .”
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
It was me who’d done that.
She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. She never loved me. Not really.”
“I’m sure she did?—”
“No. She told me she didn’t. She said, ‘Last, I never loved you. You’re the spawn of your father, and I hate you more than I hate him. I hope you die.’”
“That’s . . . I’m sorry.”
She shrugged. “I saw Luvic yesterday, sneaking off to see a creature. A beautiful, red-haired creature. I wonder if he loves her.”
I glanced quickly at her. What did she know?
“And?” I asked.
Last shrugged.
“Are you upset?”
“Why would I be upset? He’s mine. He’ll realize it soon enough.”
A cold chill washed through me. Suddenly, I was stone-cold sober.
Finally, she turned to me. Mascara ran down her cheeks in dark rivers, and her eyelashes were spiked with tears. “Thanks for a fun day, Mari.”
“You’re welcome.”
She smiled. “See you at the wedding.”
I nodded.
When I made it back to my room at the asylum, I stared in the mirror before unraveling Last’s knots. Staring back was the face I wore in my last life. The last face Finn had seen before I killed him.
52
The soft whoomp whoomp whoomp of the ghost train mirrored the beating of my heart. I leaned my head against the firm muscles of Finn’s shoulder and looked up at his hard, unshaven jaw and the feathering lines of his eyelashes.
The train rolled slowly along the track, and its gentle glide pulled me into a sleep-thick relaxation. My arms and my legs felt heavy, as if they were full of sand sliding down an hourglass. I wrapped my arms around Finn’s middle and curled into him.
I wasn’t surprised to find myself riding this nighttime train. Before I went to sleep, I’d warded the space under my bed, and I’d locked my door. There was no way into my room, and if I didn’t unlock the door, there was no way out.
