Death Wish (Alexa O'Brien, Huntress #5)(8)

I met her brown eyes, so like my own, and found wariness, confusion and possibly even hope in their depths. How could this be? She was dead. Raoul had killed her along with our mother and father. Yet there she stood, waiting for my reaction.

“Juliet?” Her name felt foreign on my lips. I couldn’t recall the last time I’d said it.

“In the flesh.” Her voice wavered ever so slightly. “It’s been a long time.”

I had to remember to breathe. Stunned as I was, it almost hurt to suck in a ragged breath. “How? He killed you. I know he did.”

She shook her head, and something close to sadness passed through her eyes. “No. He killed mom and dad. I probably should have died, too. I was in a coma for two weeks. I woke up surrounded by strangers. And, you were long gone.”

The events of that night played out in my head. I’d been attacked, lying there in a pool of my own blood. My family lay dead, strewn throughout the house. My dad and my sister had been in another room. I never saw their bodies with my own eyes.

“I thought I was the only one who survived. I couldn’t hang around after that. After what he turned me into.” This was too much to take in. I just kept staring at her, waiting to wake up from this dream.

Juliet slid onto the seat across from me. She sat stiffly. Her face hardened, and her tone became brittle. “You didn’t go far though. Not from him. How could you do it, Alexa?”

I was confused. Juliet seemed to know a lot more about me than I would have guessed. “How long have you known I was alive?”

“Long enough to know that you slept with the man that did this to us. How could you? After what he did to mom and dad’s marriage? After he murdered them?” She spoke calmly, but there was venom in her words.

The weight of her accusatory stare grew heavy. She may have been my sister, once, but she was a stranger right now, one who had no right to question me. Not unless she was willing to spit out some answers of her own.

“I didn’t know about mom’s affair with him until last year. I never knew he was the one who attacked us that night. He kept it all from me. And now, he’s dead.”

She studied me hard, finding truth in my response. Her face softened. “You’re powerful. More than you ever were as a kid.”

I shrugged. “Things change.” The initial shock began to fade. I couldn’t allow old memories to break down my defense. I didn’t know if I could trust her.

“They certainly do.”

An awkward silence settled between us. I wanted to ask her so many questions, but most of them she would never answer.

“What are you doing here, Juliet? Why now?”

Her full lips twisted into a frown. “I’m sure you have a lot of questions. So do I. For instance, why are your eyes blue? And, why do you work with a demon?”

I was channeling a lot of power in my anxious state. It was instinct to keep it coiled tight and ready inside me. Apparently, I was tapping a little too much if my eyes were still blue.

So, she knew a lot about me. I couldn’t help but feel that was unfair. She hadn’t been bothered to reveal her existence, but she’d clearly put in the time to learn about mine.

“My eyes are still brown. Usually.” I offered nothing else. I had no way of knowing how much she knew. I wasn’t about to tell her. “I don’t suppose you want to tell me where you’ve been all these years, or why you never bothered to get in touch.”

Juliet smiled, an amused little quirk of her lips that triggered memories of that same smile on the little girl I’d known her to be. It was familiar and safe but also possibly misleading.

“I suppose that’s fair.” Juliet was calm and collected. Nothing about her indicated she was as nervous as I was. She was just so suave. “I was taken in and raised by a government organization. They wanted you, too, but by the time they came for us, you were gone. They gave me a place to call home, and now I work for them.”

She paused to allow me to take that in. I leaned back in my chair, crossed my legs, then uncrossed them. I was restless, and it showed.

“So what do you do for this organization? And, why wait until now to tell me you’re alive? That information would have been really nice to have, Juliet.” Her name felt so odd in my mouth, though it shouldn’t.

“I clean up messes. Tie up loose ends. Gather information. That kind of thing.” She held my gaze, unflinching. “I’m sorry. I wish I could have told you sooner.”

My little sister grew up to be a killer just like me. That truth held something horrifying, something that broke my heart.

“So you’re some kind of black ops. Espionage, covert operation and assassination? Mom and Dad would be so proud.”

“It’s not so different from what you do. Is it?” Leaning back in her chair, Juliet crossed her arms over her chest and regarded me with the fierce intensity of the wolf. “I work for the Federal Para-Intelligence Agency. It’s classified. Our business is national security on a paranormal level.”

A chill crept over me. I didn’t like the sound of this. “You’re telling me a paranormal government group grabbed you after the attack, and now you’re part of their team? You never wanted to leave?”

“Sounds crazy, huh?” She nibbled her bottom lip, the only nervous gesture she’d exhibited so far. “Almost as crazy as being taken in by the man who murdered our parents. And then, sleeping with him.”