The Book Eaters(82)
The fresh cartridges weighed heavy in Devon’s palm. “If I believe that about your brother, then I have to believe my son is gone.”
“Not necessarily,” Hester said, after a moment’s consideration. “Cai is strongly himself, from the little I’ve seen. He must fight it. How, I don’t know, only that he does. Was he close to Matley?”
“No,” Devon said. “They barely saw each other.”
“Maybe that makes a difference. Weston was an unusually powerful personality, and had a close, if twisted, relationship with Killock. That must complicate things, surely.”
“What about you?” Devon said, carefully slotting the magazine back in. “Did you fight that influence? Did you change?”
“Yes and no. I mean, where did you think I learned to shoot?” She shrugged. “Girls don’t get taught how to use guns. Not even mind eater ones. Especially not mind eater ones. That skill is only for men. Like the man I ate. He’s a part of me now, as are other things about him.”
Devon digested that information. “I hadn’t wondered about the shooting till you mentioned it. Nor the smoking. I guess I assumed you got it all from a book.”
“Nah. Eating a book on guns would give you technical knowledge of shooting, but it wouldn’t give you muscle memory. Or instincts built on experience. Eating a person, though, is a whole new level of absorption.”
“I see.” Devon thought about that as she lifted the gun to her shoulder and fired, rather badly, at the targets. Her shots missed and she didn’t care, was thinking about Cai doggedly playing the same video game through his feeds. The way he seemed to subsume himself after each victim and come “back” to her hours later, as if from a long journey. Had she risked losing him to another persona each and every time, the way Hester claimed Killock had been lost, the way Devon had always feared to lose him? A heart-stopping thought.
When the gun was empty again, she lowered it and said, “There’s no reason to stay. You don’t owe this man your life. Why not just grab some Redemption and leg it?”
“Why didn’t you leave Cai?” Hester said. “If not for him you could be halfway around the planet by now. What price do you put on love, Devon Fairweather?”
She knew that answer by heart. “No price. There isn’t one. Love doesn’t have a cost. It’s just a choice you make.”
“Then you’ve answered your own question. I promised Lock I’d stay with him when we fled, that we would always be together. How can I renege? He destroyed himself trying to free me and my siblings.” Hester took the rifle back, cleaning it out with expert speed. “I wish you could have met Lock when he was younger. He was lovely, sweet-natured, earnest. Never hurt a soul in his life, till that night.”
“I’m sorry.” She was, too.
“Everybody’s sorry.” Hester slammed the magazine into place and fired again, one shot after another until the gun was empty and every glass bottle broken.
Devon clapped both hands over her ears and waited till the thundercracks died down, ears ringing in the aftermath of each tinkling explosion.
Hester set down the rifle, lips quivering at the corners. “Sometimes I catch myself wishing he’d died. Is that awful? But I wish it all the same, because then I could be free of him without guilt or fear. Christ, listen to me!” Her face fell. “You must think I’m a monster. There you are, doing everything possible to save your son, while the best I can manage is to pray my brother has a fucking heart attack in his sleep.”
The familiarity of that sentiment wasn’t lost on Devon. She couldn’t not feel a twinge, a lurch, at the echo of words she’d so often said to herself.
“I don’t think that at all,” Devon said, and meant it. “I don’t think less of anyone who just wants the misery to end. You’re not a monster.”
“That’s kind,” Hester said, bitter, “but you don’t know me.”
“Maybe not.” Devon thought again of the vicar, and all the long line of Cai’s victims who came before him, and it seemed she spoke to absolve herself as much as Hester. “But I do know we can only live by the light we’re given, and some of us are given no light at all. What else can we do except learn to see in the dark?”
“Learn to see in the dark,” Hester echoed, then added quietly, “I don’t deserve that lie.”
“It’s the truth,” Devon said, with more conviction than she felt.
“… Thank you.” Hester leaned forward and hugged her, the unexpectedness almost shocking Devon out of her skin.
And she shocked herself more by hugging back, though she had to lean down to do so, trying to remember when she’d last embraced another adult. Jarrow, before he’d left for London. Another woman, though—never, not since the aunts had said good-bye at her first wedding.
It was a small comfort against the wide world. She felt sorry for Hester, for herself, for entire generations of their ridiculous and twisted Families; for the lives they ruined and the misery they chose to inflict on each other, and on themselves. A grotesque mess.
And one she was probably about to make worse.
Devon said, breaking the fragile stillness between them, “Hes, I wasn’t being honest, in Killock’s study. I kept things back.” A steadying breath. “There’s something I need to tell you, too.”