Slashback (Cal Leandros, #8)(79)

“Nik used to call me a rubber ball when I was a kid. All the time. He said I could bounce back from anything. He said I was amazing that way.” That was a warm memory. I’d keep that one. “Then the Auphe took me when I was fourteen.”

“And you didn’t bounce back,” Goodfellow said quietly.

“No, I’d stopped bouncing a little earlier, when I was eleven. I stopped after what I saw in the attic. What I heard really.” I flexed my other hand, and, damn, that was worse than the first one. “I pretended. Fake it until you make it, right? I faked it with the best of them. But no more bouncing, not the real kind. That’s when I knew I was right not to tell him. I didn’t want him to be like me.”

Resigned to fate.

“Tell him? Tell him what?”

“I was awake part of the time, in the attic. Nik doesn’t know. Nik can’t know,” I warned. “I was awake when Junior cut me with his knife, telling me I was an innocent. I had no sin in my blood to drain, but he liked that part. Loved it. He knew I wouldn’t mind.” I’d still been confused and half out of it from the drugs but I remembered him holding me close, with an arm wrapped around my bare back as he dragged the point of the knife through my skin to watch me bleed.

Robin rested his elbows on his knees and folded hands against his mouth. “Gamisou. The monster.”

I almost laughed, but Nik could’ve heard. I held it back, but it wasn’t easy. “Monster. That’s what he thought he was, but then a Grendel opened a gate into the attic and Junior found out how wrong he was. The Grendel . . . f*ck, the Auphe, I mean, slashed him to pieces. Left him dying on the floor. I’d never seen anything like it. It tore Junior apart with no more effort than it took to breathe.” Vicious and predatory and f*cking murder made of moonlight and blood. “Before they’d only watched me. I didn’t know. I had no idea what they could do.” I’d had no idea how outside of the world and everything in it they were. How alien and how f*cking unstoppable. “And then it came over and whispered in my ear. I was on the floor, trapped in a corner. I’d never seen one close up, only through windows. I didn’t know they could talk. . . .

“It had bent down and pressed those metal teeth to my ear and hissed possessively, ‘You belong to us, little cousin. One day we will come for you. Next year, the year after, the year after. You will not know, but we will come and take you through that.’ A black talon pointed at the roiling mass of ugly, tarnished light that had torn a hole in the world and hung there, waiting. ‘We will take you home to your true family. Wait for us. Watch for us.’

“Then it and the gate were gone. Nik had pounded up the stairs just as I’d let my eyes shut. I’d heard him talking urgently to me, but I wasn’t hearing words anymore. I did hear the meaty thump that was the knife ramming into Junior’s heart, Nik finishing him. For all that the Auphe had half killed him, Nik had completed the job. Nik had killed to save me.”

“How could you not tell him?” Robin had his hand on my shoulder squeezing. It was the same one Nik gave me when he knew I needed reassurance, but not the embarrassment of the words.

“How could I? Nik was meant for college, meant for a real life. If I’d told him the Auphe would be back for me anytime, he never would’ve tried those things. He wouldn’t have gone to school and it wouldn’t have made a damn bit of difference. Even at eighteen Nik wasn’t a match for all the Auphe.” I’d known that and I’d thought I was doing the right thing. “You know, Robin. It took four of us and a suicide run that never should’ve worked to do that.” I slumped back in the couch and let my head fall to stare at the ceiling. “Three years before they came for me. It was a long time. It was so f*cking long knowing every night might be the night. But it was worth it. Niko didn’t get all the college he wanted or that real life, but he got a taste and that’s better than nothing, right?” I believed that. I had to, but for one other person to tell me so, for one other person to know—that would be good.

Secrets are so goddamn heavy.

“It is worth that.” Robin moved from the coffee table to sit next to me. “You’re a hero, Caliban. I know you refuse to believe that about yourself, but you are. You say how Niko raised you, how he saved you. What you don’t let yourself see is that you saved him as well—more than he knows. You let him see there was more to life than abusive mothers and life on the run. It didn’t last long, but it lasted long enough for him to know it was possible and build the same thing for you both now. And, no, I won’t tell. You each have far too impossible heights of guilt. It’s like an unholy competition. I refuse to add to that.”

I lifted my head and let the corners of my mouth twitch into an honest smile. “Thanks. And thanks for letting me get it out. I have mental graves all over the place and I get tired of reburying that particular one.”

There was silence; then Robin asked one more question. “Do you think Jack shorted out your gating abilities for good?”

I tilted my head back again, this time with my eyes shut. “I don’t know. With Grimm out there and all, I should care, but right now, I don’t.”

And while it wasn’t a practical feeling, it was a good one.

That was enough for me.

I’d seen enough holes in the world to last me a lifetime.