Page 58 of Invidia

I’d followed the rules. I’d done everything right.

“What happened?” Meera asked, all gentle curiosity and no judgment.

“I was put on patrol one night in a park with a few of those obnoxious rich kids—or obnoxious rich young adults—that I’d been forced to associate with in high school. It wasn’t uncommon, but usually I wasn’t put on with so many of them at once. None of them were taking the patrol seriously. They were lounging around in the park, smoking and drinking. Getting annoyed with me that I wouldn’t sit down with them, that I was actually Shade hunting and taking my duties seriously.”

God, it was still so humiliating to talk about this, even though it had been years, but the embarrassment was mostly directed at myself these days. They were in the wrong—I still felt strongly about that, even though I fundamentally disagreed with everything the Hunters stood for nowadays—but I’d been so silly and naïve to think that I could do anything about it. That doing the right thing mattered more than your last name when it came to the Hunters Council.

“I made a note of everything. Took pictures of that night, showing them lounging around, not contributing. A Shade did enter that park—I chased them off on my own. I didn’t kill them,” I added hastily, though I doubted Meera would judge me if I had. “I took it to the Council and filed a complaint.”

“They didn’t believe you?” Meera asked, almost a little too shrewdly. Like perhaps that was a phenomenon she’d experienced firsthand.

“They probably did—the pictures were pretty clear. But most of the people I’d reported were related to Council members. I was narking on them to their own parents in many cases. And those parents did not take my criticisms of their precious little flowers well at all.”

Meera grimaced. “So they banished you for reporting on their lazy kids? I mean, in hindsight, I’m glad they were too unmotivated to slaughter Shades en masse, but it does seem awfully hypocritical of them.”

“I wasn’t banished, not really. I was more… shunned. My complaint was swept under the rug. People I’d considered close friends stopped replying to my messages. I wasn’t rostered on for patrols anymore. Even my parents started acting strange—screening my calls and refusing dinner invitations, stuff like that.”

“I’m so sorry, Tallulah. That must have been horrible.”

“I don’t know. It was so gradual that it almost wasn’t horrible, not right away. I was still busy at work. By the time I really noticed how distant everyone was, months had gone by, and the grief started to set in. At that point, I contacted an old college friend who had a house they’d been building—an off-grid place in Idaho Springs. I asked if I could visit, and he offered to let me live there while he was working offshore, just to look after the place. I wanted a fresh start, so I sold the business, packed up and left. It was right as he came back and I was looking for somewhere new to go that Astrid got in touch with the offer to come here.”

I still felt guilty about leaving Josh’s so abruptly. I’d told him that I had a job opportunity on a yacht in the Caribbean and it’d be difficult to get in touch. Hopefully, he didn’t think I’d died.

“You don’t ever wish you’d got some kind of closure in that situation?” Meera asked.

I mulled it over for a moment. “No? I think, when there’s a possibility of love—romantic, platonic, familial, whatever—I find myself grasping desperately to keep it. But when I’m cut off like that, my ego finally kicks into gear and allows me to let it go. You know?”

Meera tilted her head to the side, looking thoughtful. “No. I want closure. More specifically, I want revenge. Someday, I’ll get it.”

That she sounded so cool and calm about it was honestly more terrifying than if she’d sounded angry.

“I’ll be there for you when you do.”

Meera gave me another one of those mysterious half smiles. “I know. Want to sleep in here tonight?”

“Yes, please.”

“Perfect. Let’s get some rest. No stressing about tomorrow, okay? You’ve got this.”

I nodded decisively. “I’ve got this.”

And, for once, I didn’t feel like I was lying because it wasn’t just my future at stake anymore.

Chapter 20

Tallulah’s scent was all wrong today. My stomach flipped, a nervousness I wasn’t accustomed to settling in. I’d thought that we were making progress, but maybe I’d moved too quickly by showing her the cottage.

Fuck. I’d probably terrified her. What was the usual order in which these things were done? I’d almost gone to my brothers yesterday and asked for guidance, but I suspected they knew as little about courting as I did.

And perhaps I’d been a little cowardly, too. I wasn’t ready to hear the disbelief in their voices when I told them that a coveted ex-Hunter had chosen me.

“Everything okay?” I asked, aiming for cheerful as we wandered along the bank of the river opposite Elverston House. I was desperate to go ahead and purchase the cottage so we had somewhere we could be alone, but I’d hold off until I was sure Tallulah wasn’t just going along with the idea to appease me.

“Yup. Everything is fine.” Her smile was shaky, but it was nothing compared to the anxiousness in her scent.

“What’s going on, Tallulah?”

She wrung her hands together in front of her as we walked instead of holding my arm like she usually would, and rejection lashed relentlessly at my skin, despite my attempts to tell myself to be patient and not jump to conclusions.

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