Justice moved. Fast as a shadow, he palmed two knives and stepped in front of me.
Rou made a surprised noise.
“Who?” Justice asked. “Who, Griff? A name.”
I peered around Justice’s back. Griff narrowed his black eyes on me.
“You and Mari,” he said. “You two wanted to kill each other. What does it matter who killed me? Why worry about enemies when your best friends will be the ones to kill you in the end? You want a name? You. You and Mari.”
He shoved out of bed. The naked lines of him bulged, tendons flexing and muscles twisting. He was three seconds from releasing his father’s form.
He pinned me with his stare. “Is there any of you left? Or was Rou right, and you’re only a monster now? If Jagger told you to kill me, would you do it?”
Justice pushed between Griff and me. “Don’t ask her that.”
Griff twisted his mouth. “Why not? We already know your answer. You’re the reason Mari’s a mine.”
“Children—”
“Yes,” I said, in my new, hard voice. “I’d kill you. Someday, you’ll be the same. Stop raging against reality. What happened last night?”
Griff stared at me, wide-eyed. His shoulders slumped, and his father’s form stopped fighting to break free. He deflated, all the anger and fight collapsing.
“I never truly thought you’d be like him,” he said, nodding to Justice. “Turns out I was right. You’re not like him. You came back even worse.”
I held still, all the air sucked out of me by Griff’s words. His eyes weren’t tear-filled like they had been for the past two weeks; instead, he looked at me as if he was infinitely sorry and mourning the loss of something good that he’d never get back. Like a child who’d plucked all the petals from a daisy, not realizing new petals wouldn’t grow in their place. He looked at me as if I were ruined and gone.
What could I say?
I’m still me? I’m trying to save you. I’m still here.
I’ve hidden my good so it won’t be devoured.
Please, don’t lose faith in me.
No. I couldn’t say any of that.
I knew without a doubt that everything said in this room would be repeated to Jagger. Either Rou, Justice, or even I would tell him word for word.
So instead, I held Griff’s gaze and said, “You say worse, I say better.”
I heard the echo of Griff’s old, “Don’t say that.” And the response: “Not saying it doesn’t make it less true.”
But he didn’t tell me not to say it—he only stared at me for a long moment, his eyes shifting from black back to soft brown.
“I followed you last night,” he finally said, turning aside.
I raised an eyebrow. So he was the presence I felt.
“I watched you burn the Night Den. Then . . .” He paused, and I could see him choosing to hide something of his own. “The Smith—Alterra—saw me. He hunted me.”
My heart gave a hard jolt at Finn’s name.
Justice let out a low, snarling noise, and Griff looked at him swiftly, then back to me.
“Finn?” I questioned, ignoring how his name made my heart kick and my chest ache. “Finn Alterra hunted you?”
He wouldn’t. Finn knew Griff was an innocent. He knew how much I cared about him. He wouldn’t hurt him. Not ever.
