The Devouring Gray(55)

She’d known the moment she saw Justin, May, and Isaac that it had been a mistake.

Violet didn’t want to hear them fight about the ways they’d hurt one another. She already knew how it would end: They’d all insist they actually cared about her, when really, they just cared about proving their family was better.

She was done with their pettiness.

She could grieve without their help.

But now Isaac was standing in front of the ROSIE boxes, unbuttoning the top of his shirt.

“I told you to get out,” Violet said, clutching her blankets close. “Not sure how you interpreted that as an invitation to strip.”

“I used to have three brothers,” Isaac said evenly, pulling his collar to the side and displaying his neck. “Two uncles. My mom, my aunt, my cousins. But they’re all gone now, and the ones who are dead hurt me less than the ones who left.”

“And the scar?” asked Violet. It shone gray and silvery in the dim light, like an extra shadow snaking across his throat.

“I got this the day it happened.”

“How?”

She was waiting for him to stop talking. But he stepped closer instead.

“Some Sullivans can break things. Some can put them back together. But there was no one left who wanted to fix me.”

Violet lowered her blankets to her waist. She was mildly aware of the fact that she hadn’t bothered to look like a person today. But her baggy T-shirt and bare face didn’t seem to matter right now.

“What were their names?” she said softly. “Your brothers?”

Isaac curled a hand around her bedpost. “Caleb. Isaiah.” He hesitated. “Gabriel.”

“Gabriel’s the one who left, isn’t he?”

A quick, curt nod. “How did you know?”

“You said the ones who left hurt you more. That name hurt you the most.”

She had shoved the covers off now, her hands resting on her leggings as she met Isaac’s eyes.

“I’m sorry about Daria,” he said softly. “And I’m sorry about your sister.”

“You knew?”

“I googled you.”

“You could’ve just asked,” Violet muttered, although something like relief fluttered in her chest. Someone had seen that she was hurting and found an answer. Isaac knew that there had once been her and Rosie, that she was all alone now. “But if you’re going to talk about her, you should call her Rosie.”

Isaac nodded. “If that’s what you want.”

“I’m sorry about your family. About everything. It’s just—it’s not fair.” Violet’s voice broke on the last word. The tears collecting in the back of her throat were impossible to hold back now, and she realized to her horror that they were beginning to spill down her cheeks.

She was crying now. In front of a boy she barely knew.

A boy who had just told her about the worst moments of his life, for no reason other than to show her that she was not alone after all.

A boy who was looking at her right now, not with pity or alarm, but with understanding.

“You’re right,” he said, reaching a tentative hand forward and wiping the tears from her cheek. “It’s not fair. But you can’t bring them back.”

“You don’t understand,” said Violet hoarsely, remembering the body, the tether she’d felt between them. “I’m pretty sure I could.”

He jerked his hand away. “With your powers?”

There was the alarm. The concern.

Violet snorted and swiped at her tears herself. “Look, it’s my power, okay? Resurrecting things. So I thought that if I could get Rosie here, I could bring her back. But I wouldn’t do it. Not now. They aren’t alive like they once were, and I wouldn’t want her to be…to be anything like…”

“Like your cat?” asked Isaac, while Orpheus, as if on cue, padded out from beneath the bed.

Violet hesitated. But she had held so much inside her for so long.

She was ready to talk now.

“Tell the others they can stop eavesdropping—which I’m sure they are doing—and come back in,” she said. “Actually, wait. I want to see the Hawthornes first.”

Isaac swung open the door, where Justin, May, and Harper were still standing, all doing a poor job of pretending they had not been listening.

“You wanted to talk to us?” said Justin eagerly.

Violet sighed. “It’s not a compliment. I have some questions for both of you.”

She waved Isaac out, and Justin and May in, feeling strangely powerful.

May flicked on the light switch as she passed it. “No offense,” she said. “It was just super depressing in here.”

Violet raked a hand through her tangled hair. “That was kind of the point?”

May shrugged. “Whenever Isaac gets too angsty, we show up and make him go outside. We’ll do the same for you if we have to.”

Violet choked back a badly suppressed laugh.

“Harper happened to mention, before you guys showed up, that you failed your ritual,” she said, looking at Justin. “Explain.”

“I did,” said Justin quietly. “I’m sorry.”

The truth was, Violet didn’t really care that Justin didn’t have powers. She understood why he would want to keep such a thing under wraps.