Where Silence Gathers (Some Quiet Place #2)(85)
Though it’s the hundredth time Missy has asked me this over the past week, I don’t snap. “I’m fine. Just want to enjoy the fresh air for a little bit, if that’s all right.”
She swallows and walks over to touch my cheek. “Don’t stay out here too long. You shouldn’t be standing so much.” I nod. She pulls away and heads up the stairs. Then comes the sound of a door closing.
The moment it echoes through the clearing, Revenge releases her. Eggs bolts toward me. Her damp nose sniffs my hands, my legs, my arms. Joy leaks through my chest as if my heart has exploded, and I lower myself to the ground to hug the dog I thought I would never see again. When I got back from the hospital two days ago and her body wasn’t under the stairs, I just assumed Saul had found and buried it.
Eggs whines happily and licks my face. I gag, jerking back. “Oh my God, Eggs, you reek.”
But I keep stroking and petting her. She’s warm and solid in a way my father never was during our encounters. This is real. Finally I look at Revenge. “How—”
He shrugs, hands shoved in his pockets. “Called in a favor. It’s not like we’re breaking any rules, right? I didn’t interfere in human affairs.” He flashes me a shadow of that grin I know so well.
At a loss of what to say, I settle for the same words Nate Foster did in the tunnel. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” Revenge rocks on his heels, and it’s easy to imagine a white flag over the two of us. We’re both painfully aware, especially now, how much things have changed. I open my mouth, to ask why or what happens next. But then Revenge blurts, “I’m not human, Alex.”
I frown, turning slightly when Eggs tries to lick my mouth again. “I know … ”
“No, you don’t. And it’s my fault, really.” He purses his lips, focusing on his shoes. That gelled mane of his looks like liquid fire in the twilight. “I’ve lived so long and met so many of your kind. I’ve been there through so much destruction. And I enjoyed every second of it. Until you.” He still doesn’t look at me, and my heart is pounding so hard he must be able to hear it. “At first, you were just another game. I waited and put ideas in your head. But along the way, you grew up, and I forgot to keep my distance. I forgot to love the game. Instead, I just loved you.”
For a moment, I stop breathing. We stare at each other now, me and this creature who I once considered my best friend, once believed myself to be in love with. Then I tear my eyes from his and take two steps away. Emotions touch me with gentle hands, but I won’t let myself look at them. Eggs is the only one that matters among all this warmth and summer oblivion. She cocks her head. Her attention is quickly diverted when a dragonfly zips past her nose. When she runs into the trees I’m not afraid, though, because some things come back.
Suddenly I swing around to face him again. “You don’t do that to someone you love, Revenge.”
He doesn’t react like he usually would, like I expect him to. He stays calm, and his voice is subdued when he counters, “Didn’t you do the same thing to the people you love?”
Silence. Birds chirp. An airplane soars overhead. In that silence I realize that Revenge is right. In the ways that matter, it is the same. I know better than anyone that love encompasses everything it means to be human. Laughter, pain, shadows, suns. To love is to stay when it’s hard and leave when it’s necessary. Sometimes it’s wrong and unhealthy and doomed. Sometimes it isn’t. And sometimes it makes us do things no other emotion would. “Revenge—”
“I fought it. I tried to ignore it and push it away. The trick with your father? That was nothing compared to what I’ve done in the past. At least, it should have been nothing.” Agitated now, he starts to turn away.
I move so he can’t. He glares at his shoes again and I want to touch him so badly. Not a kiss or anything romantic. Just a touch—like when Missy brushed my cheek—to let him know that even when everything seems ruined, there’s always something to salvage in the wreckage. “You don’t have to explain any more. I understand,” I say.
At this, he looks up. His expression is so anguished that the cold stranger in the mines seems like a distant memory. “Do you know why I fell in love with you, Alex? Out of all the mortal women on this earth, why you were the one to make me forget what I am?”
Sniffing, I shake my head. Revenge smiles a little. “You’re so alive. A part of you has always thought that you died the day of the accident, right? But that was the biggest lie of all. When I was supposed to be on the other side of the world, focused on retribution, I just wanted to be near you.”
He falls silent, and so do I. Does he expect me to feel the same way? I might understand the reasons for his actions, and I might even be able to forgive him eventually, but that part of us did die in the mines. I open my mouth to stumble over a response and Revenge shakes his head to stop me. He’s not smiling anymore. There’s still a softness in his gaze, though. “One day you’ll get off this mountain,” he tells me quietly. “You’ll leave all this behind. You’ll meet new people and see new places. Maybe even fall in love.” He pauses. “And I want that for you. Because you deserve it.”
It’s the most I’ve ever heard Revenge say, which is considerable since he’s never been the sort to hold back. There’s nothing else to add, really—he knows me better than anyone. He probably knows my thoughts before I do. Like now, because he turns away again. And this time I let him.