I take a seat near the corner and rest my hands on my knees. A dozen people occupy the room. Some older, some younger, some guarded, some already crying. They look like people who have been torn open and rearranged by loss, and within seconds I know I don’t belong among them.
I am not stricken by pain like this. I am unraveling, yes. But that’s because of the social constructs drilled into my mind that say seeking revenge and taking lives is wrong. Not because of sadness.
Taking lives is not wrong. It should be even. It’s not even either, but that’s the best a man like me could do.
What was the alternative? Capture Leonard and torture him until he felt as much pain as I believed he deserved? That would have been playing god. A supernatural creature with too much power in its hands. And perhaps someone should hold thatpower and wield it, but how could I, in good conscience, claim with any fairness that person should be me?
My thoughts threaten to spiral deeper until the door opens again.
Two men walk in who, unlike everyone else in this room, seem different. Somewhat like me.
The first one is already agitated. Ginger hair, green eyes, jaw clenched tight in a way that telegraphs irritation before he’s even fully through the door. He lingers near the threshold, scanning the room like he’d rather be anywhere else, until the man behind him murmurs something low and pointed into his ear.
The redhead rolls his eyes, mutters under his breath, and steps inside.
The other one stays half a step behind. He’s difficult to read at first glance. Broad-shouldered, precise in the way he moves, dark hair cut close to his head. One of his eyes is blind, and he wears it openly. Everything about him reads as disciplined, which I usually appreciate in people. And yet something about him unsettles me in a way I can’t immediately name.
He registers as a threat.
They take the only two open seats. The ginger drops into his with a graceless collapse, knees spread wide, exhaling like he’s been dragged here on a leash. The other sits with his back straight, elbows in, hands loose but ready on his thighs.
They don’t carry the same grieving weight the others do.
It interests me and unsettles me in equal measure.
“Welcome,” the counselor says. “Thank you all for joining us today. Before we begin, let’s go around and introduce ourselves. Just our names for now. No pressure.”
One by one, people offer their names.
“Margaret.”
“Tom.”
“Lily.”
“Daniel.”
When it reaches the ginger, he lifts his chin reluctantly. “Talon,” he says.
The dark-haired one gives a short nod. “Cassian.”
“Nathaniel,” I say.
The introductions continue around the circle, but I catch the brief glance Cassian exchanges with Talon, like he’s sending him some hidden message.
Are they family? Did they both lose someone they cared about? Why are they here together?
They don’t seem related, and there’s no sense of equality between them. Talon, the ginger, is irritated by Cassian. Cassian seems to want something from him, like he always has something to say and keeps swallowing it.
My mind jumps immediately to Leonard. Are they detectives, hunting for cracks in people they suspect of something? But even if they are, my crime was perfect. It left no trail back to me. They cannot be here because of me.
“This group is a safe place to express whatever you’re carrying,” the counselor says. “You don’t have to speak today, but you’re welcome to at any point.”
She turns to a woman beside her and opens the first share of the session. The group listens with sympathetic hums and quiet murmurs. Talon bounces his knee, glancing at the floor, at the windows, at the counselor. Not like a cop. But maybe that’s all a performance.
Cassian watches the room in slow, sweeping scans, and since I’m watching him so closely, it isn’t long before he watches me too. He meets my gaze about four times in the next twenty minutes. Each time I look away first, casually, the way you’d glance at anyone in a room. But each time I do, I’m aware that he’s clocking me more and more.
That only fuels my interest.
