Slow Agony (Assassins, #2)(33)

I shook my head. “That’s why Griffin and I broke up. Months ago. See, at a New Year’s party, he saw me give one of my guy friends a hug. But he was convinced I kissed him. I don’t know why. Anyway, then he left. He disappeared for weeks. And I found out I was pregnant. I didn’t know what happened to him. So... I took care of it. Then he came back. And when he found out, he was mad. Last night he told me I killed his child.”

Silas raised his eyebrows. “Wow.”

I bit into a mozzarella stick. I chewed and swallowed. “Sometimes I feel guilty about it. No, actually I don’t.”

“Okay,” said Silas.

“I don’t feel guilty about it, and I feel like maybe I should. So I feel guilty for not feeling guilty.”

He ate another jalapeno popper. “That’s a little convoluted.”

I drank some more of my margarita. “I know. I’m a crazy person.”

He dunked a mozzarella stick in tomato sauce. “You know, um, before Op Wraith got us, when my life was normal, I, uh... I took a girl to get one.”

“You did?”

“We were in high school,” he said. “It only made sense.”

I nodded. “That’s the thing. I’m not sure if what I did made sense. Griffin says I’m selfish, and maybe he’s right. And maybe the fact that I don’t feel guilty proves that.”

“I don’t think you should do that to yourself.”

“Do what?”

He snagged a nacho. “Beat yourself up. It’s not going to change what happened, you know.” He popped the nacho in his mouth, chewed, and swallowed. “I’ve actually killed people, you know. And not just with a gun from a safe distance. I’ve stabbed men to death. Up close and personal.”

I thought of the man in Op Wraith that I’d had to kill to free Griffin. It had been a long time ago, but I’d never forgotten how deep I’d had to cut into his neck, how much blood there had been. I suddenly wasn’t hungry. “I have too.”

“So,” he said. “How’d you feel? After the abortion? Did it feel at all the same?”

“Well, no, but... it’s not the same.”

“Exactly,” he said. “It’s not.”

“I’m only saying that—whatever I felt—it doesn’t mean that I didn’t actually kill something. Maybe I did. Griffin thinks so.”

Silas’ appetite hadn’t been affected by thinking about killing people. He was helping himself to more chili fries. “My high school girlfriend asked me that afterwards. She asked me if she thought we were murderers. I told her that I didn’t think so. And anyway, it almost doesn’t matter, right?”

“Doesn’t matter?”

“Like I said, I actually killed people,” he said. “And after you do something like that, you have to live with yourself, right?”

I nodded. “You tell yourself you had to do it.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Because it’s done, and if you let it get to you, then it will destroy you. You have to move forward past this.”

He was right. It almost didn’t matter. It was over. I couldn’t change it. The best thing that I could do now was to make sure I could live with it, even if that meant I never got Griffin back. My appetite returned a little. I reached for a jalapeno popper. “You and that girl in high school? Is the abortion why you broke up or did you stay together afterwards?”

“No, it’s probably why we broke up,” said Silas, draining his margarita.

*

Three drinks later, Silas and I had moved from the booth to the actual bar, which was tucked in the back room of the restaurant. I was talking to some guy I’d just met about my extensive knowledge of cocktails in the 1920s. Which, um, wasn’t that extensive, but he seemed interested. Maybe he was as drunk as I was. I wasn’t sure.

Silas came over to me, hand-in-hand with some girl. She was gorgeous, wearing a tiny shirt that showed off her flat stomach, and she was giggling. He grinned at me. “I’m going back to the hotel. You coming?”

The girl hit him. “Hey! I didn’t agree to anything like that. I’m not into girls.”

“No, no, no,” he said. “She’s just my friend. She has her own room.”

I guess Sloane was right. Silas really was a manwhore. “I’ll stay here for a little bit.”

“Cool,” he said. “I promise this won’t take longer than an hour.” He turned to the girl. “You know you’re not staying the night or anything, right?”

She rolled her eyes. “Don’t be an *.”

“I’m definitely an *,” said Silas. “That’s why you like me.” He tugged her after him, and they disappeared out of the bar.

I turned back to say something else about speakeasies, but the guy I’d been talking to had moved on to talk to someone else. Fine. I sat down on a stool, rested my elbows on the bar and sipped at my drink.

Time passed.

After a while, it became apparent that I wasn’t going to find anyone else to talk to, and I decided I would go back to my room. I motioned for the bartender. Even though Silas and I were paying with cash, they had to ring everything up on one ticket, so I couldn’t pay as I went. I waited to get my bill, leaning against the bar.