Vanish (Firelight #2)(18)

“Will,” she spits his name out, her hands knotted into fists at her sides. “I never thought you would sell us out for some guy. The whole time you were gone I worried about you. Even when Severin imposed his stupid rules and curfews and everyone started grumbling it was because of you, I told them they were wrong. You never would have left deliberately. I was sure your mom made you. Kidnapped you or something. How stupid was I?” She shakes her head, her hair rippling like water around her. “And the whole time you were probably off making out with some human . . . a hunter!”

“Az, please—”

“Were you ever going to tell me?”

“Eventually. Yes!”

She holds two hands up in the air like she wants to shove me from her. “Sorry, Jacinda. I just can’t talk to you right now.” She looks me up and down. “I don’t know you anymore.”

She spins, her blue-streaked hair a splash of color on the chalky air. I watch, helpless, spotting Miram in the road ahead. She waves Az over. I hold my breath, thinking surely Az has not taken to hanging out with her. But Az joins her and together they walk away.

I stand there for a moment, my throat impossibly thick. Then, conscious of how alone I am standing in the middle of the road, how pathetic I must look staring after my ex–best friend, I begin to move. One foot in front of the other. Left, right, left, right.

I should report in to my new duty. That would be the responsible thing to do. But I don’t care. I’ve already failed everybody. I can’t disappoint them any more than I have.

I toy with my dinner, moving food around my plate to make it look like I’m eating. Mom made verdaberry bread, but even that isn’t enough to restore my appetite.

I glance out the kitchen window at the settling dusk, imagining Tamra and the others gathered in the field for group flight tonight. She stopped by earlier to see if I wanted to go. Selfish or not, I couldn’t do it. I’m not ready to take to the sky with my sister and everyone else. In my dreams, when I had imagined things as they should be, it was always the two of us.

“How was your day?” Mom asks.

Something I would like to forget. Or at least make it until tomorrow so I can say it’s officially behind me.

My gaze drifts to Tamra’s vacant seat and I quickly look away . . . only to find myself staring at the space where Dad used to sit.

There’s nowhere safe to look. I’m surrounded by emptiness. Dad’s chair to my right. Tamra’s across from me. It’s only Mom to my left. And me.

“Fine.” I crumble a piece of bread between my fingers, squishing a verdaberry. Green juice stains my fingertips.

“Use your fork,” Mom says.

I pick up the utensil and stab at the dark bread. I’m not about to unload on her when she looks so fragile right now. If it hasn’t been easy for me here, then I know it’s been rough on her. Especially since the pride blames her for taking us away. “And you?” I ask. “What’d you do?”

She shrugs, twisting her thin shoulder as if to say nothing worth mentioning. I think of getting hit in the head with the ball and wonder if that happened to Mom, too. The thought makes me clench my fork so tightly my knuckles ache. “It was good to see Tamra,” she volunteers.

“Yeah,” I second.

“She looks . . . good.”

“Yeah.” Pale as an icicle.

“Spending a lot of time with Cassian,” Mom adds, watching me closely to see how this affects me. “She seems happy.”

I merely nod, unable to deny that. Tamra did look happy. But then she had Cassian now. Why wouldn’t she be?

After a moment, Mom adds, “I had a slow day at the clinic.”

“Well, that’s always a good thing,” I murmur, glad Mom didn’t lose her duty at the clinic. As a verda draki—or a former verda draki—her skills are best suited to working with the ill or injured, making the poultices and medicines that have kept our kind in good shape for generations. I don’t see them reassigning her just out of spite. Doing so would be a disservice to the pride.

“Reorganized the meds,” she volunteers, her voice a numbing monotone. “I don’t think anyone’s done that since I left.”

I nod slowly, gathering my nerve to confess: “I was reassigned.” Hopefully my voice sounds as unaffected as hers. I have to tell her. She’d find out eventually. If not from me, then someone else.

I wait for the raised eyebrow, the sharp tone that will demand why they did that. Basically, I wait for the protective, vigilant mother she’s always been.

Instead her voice sounds hollow. “You’re not in the library anymore?”

“No.” I take a bite and chew quickly, dreading the next words. “I’m with the gutting crew.”

She looks up. “The gutting crew?”

“Yeah.” I tear at the verdaberry bread until it’s only crumbs. “They needed some extra hands.”

“And who reassigned you to the gutting crew?” she asks quietly.

I give half a shrug, certain this is when she will lose her cool. “Jabel gave me the assignment.”

Nothing.

Mom’s quiet for a long moment, staring down at her plate before pushing up from the table and taking her dishes into the kitchen. I cringe as she drops them in the sink with a clatter. Still, I wait. Ready for her to say something, do something. March across the street and light into Jabel, her old friend. I can almost imagine the shouting, hear my mom demanding why her daughter was given such a lowly duty reserved for those training to be part of the pride’s hunting crew.