“I played his games. I smiled. I seduced. I killed. I fucked. I sat at his side and let him do whatever he wanted and prayed he would not see me,” Roger said. Each word was a liberation born from the chests at the bottom of his mental sea flinging themselves upward. “When I was at my strongest, I balked. I was still afraid of him. Of what he might do to me. To them.”
Slowly, Josefina came into his eyeline, but she was twenty feet away. She crept as if she was keeping alert for danger, and yet her expression did not waver from sternness. The traces of her worry were gone. A pulse of curiosity slid out from her. “Was I wrong? Was that not self-destruction I felt in you?”
“Forgive me if I don’t give a damn for this.” Roger put his hand on the center of his chest. “This is still here. I endure. Not because of any strength. But because he is a prideful bastard, and my life is a toy to him. I cannot live that way anymore. I will not bend and disappear into exile. He has made it so that I am worthless, so no, I no longer care what happens to meso long as he burns.”
The more he thought of what had happened in his long life, the more rage bubbled and boiled to the surface. Mortals died; that was the way of the world. But so many of them hadn’t needed to die the way they had. The horrific massacre at Gladwell Manor—children and adults tortured until they lost their minds. Roger hadn’t done the worst of it, but he had stopped none of it either. Letting Mary Gladwell run wasn’t near enough penance, not when he had failed her descendent, too.
Josefina was a beacon of red light in the shadows that roiled around them. The moving grays had shapes, some like ropes on a runaway ship. He could grab hold of them and tie them in place. Direct them.
A strange sensation coursed through him. He felt a rush as if he’d drunk blood, but he’d only had a blood bag at dusk. Molten heat burst underneath his mental sea, a wealth of power bubbling up. Something in the house cracked, and a beam fell.Was that me? How?
“Roger—”
“I will not be a coward anymore,” he rasped. “I will not be weak. He will pay for what he has done. He and everything he loves will burn. You cannot stop me.”
“I wouldn’t dream of that,” Josefina replied. She took careful steps forward. “But if you die in the undertaking, even if you succeed first, he will achieve his greatest victory. You need to live through this, Roger.”
“If they’re gone, I can’t promise that I’ll want to,” Roger murmured.
“Roger—”
“If he had taken Nell from you? Reed?” Roger snapped.
Josefina pursed her lips. She rested her hand on his shoulder. A shallower version of the longing to rip and shred came from her, but it lacked the flame of need and the heat of desperation that currently fueled Roger. “Roger, I will stand at your side and see you through this. For the sake of Zack and the sake of Takashi, both who I love, too, I willnotsee you destroy yourself.”
Roger laughed, the sound bitter and mean. “You’ll be able to do that safely watching from a thousand miles away?”
“I’m staying.”
“What about dragging a war to your lover’s doorstep?”
“I’ll worry about Nell and ramifications.”
He loved her desperately, needed her friendship, but he couldn’t let her remain with him. “Josefina, this isn’t your fight.”
“The fuck it isn’t,” she said angrily. “He hasn’t taken them from just you. I have claim to my anger and grief as well. I will see that he pays for it.”
“You have been adamant that you cannot be caught helping me,” Roger said.
“You have been skirting around your anger rather than embracing your wrath for as long as I have known you. But if you are finally ready to bring a war to him, then I won’t leave you to face it alone. Especially if you believe this is worthless.” She put her hand on his chest. “You have held on to your heart, Roger. I owe at least Takashi enough to ensure you live long enough for that chance to reunite with him.”
“If they’re dead?—”
“We have no confirmation. Until we do, we carry hope,” Josefina said. “If you can’t, then I will hold on to it for you.”
“I wouldn’t have thought you the type,” Roger said wryly.
“You introduced me to the love of my life. You got me out of this fucking hell, and I have been in paradise for almost a hundred years,” Josefina whispered gently. “I owe you more than I can ever repay, Roger, so much so that I am terrified to speak of its debt in case you would hold it over me.”
Though the rage was still churning inside him, the worst of it settled after listening to Josefina. She had been a beautiful human girl and an angry young vampire. Since then, she had become the stunning, powerful creature before him. She’d had the opportunity because of him. Because he had managed at least one good thing in his life.Not everything I’ve attempted has failed.
He put his forehead against hers. “You will never owe me a debt, Josefina. To know that you love and are loved heals a wound in my heart.”
“There you are, asshole,” Josefina said. Her laugh was tinged with a soft cry. “I was worried your first casualty would be your true self.”
“Carver was the first.” Roger stepped away. “I haven’t told his family. I don’t know if he had any, to be honest. Worse, I don’t know what’s happened to his body. I had to leave him.”
“I’ve already put Reed on it,” Josefina replied.
