Page 57 of Ira

There was a gas station not too far away, and I headed in that direction, intending to fill up the van so I could drive back to Harlow’s tonight after my meeting with Adela. I’d stock up on enough gas station snacks to last me the day, and beg Astrid to find a way to reimburse Harlow at some point in the future when Astrid had forgiven me.

IfAstrid forgave, I corrected uneasily.

If anyone could hold a grudge, it was Astrid. There was no telling how she’d react to what I’d done, and if she’d be able to forgive the fact that I’d gone behind her back.

I headed back to the fueled-up van with a bag of processed snacks that I was certain would make me feel sick later, freezing when I found Latika standing in front of the driver’s door with her arms crossed.

Unlike yesterday, she was more determined and less startled. This time, I was the one on the back foot.

“How did you find me?” I asked, glancing around the empty gas station. I wasn’t going to find any help here.

“I know this van,” Latika replied, narrowing her eyes. “I recognized it when I followed you out last night. The Council would beveryinterested in knowing what kind of company Harlow Miles keeps.”

Shit.

“I stole it. Harlow doesn’t know anything about it. What do you want? Did you not say everything you needed to say yesterday? Are you here to remind me again that I’m ruined?”

Maybe it was my imagination, but I could have sworn she blushed.

“No.” Latika cleared her throat. “I should report you. You’re on the Council’s list.”

“I thought they were trying to make peace these days.”

“You still have to answer for yourself, Meera. You can’t justleavethe entire realm and swan off with the enemy. There are consequences.”

I burst out laughing—I couldn’t help myself. “Latika, I don’t answer to the Hunters Council. I was banished, remember? They can demand whatever they like, it’s got nothing to do with me.”

She frowned as though the idea had never occurred to her before. “You can’t just ignore the Council, Meera. They’re… they’re everything.”

Finally,finally, I saw traces of the twelve-year-old sister I’d left behind. The one who never asked questions, who trusted me implicitly to take care of everything and who assumed that everything in the world was the way it was meant to be.

“What exactly do you think happened to me when I was banished, Latika?”

She fidgeted uneasily. “I don’t know. I guess I assumed that you were sent to live with other banished Hunters, and they gave you some kind of menial, crap job in the organization where no one would ever see you, instead of paying for college. Like Kathy,” she added dismissively.

Kathy had been an elderly widow, who’d been given a very similar setup to what Latika was describing once her husband had died. No one had even tried to hide their whispers about what a burden to the organization she was. It was probably a similar existence to what those ex-Hunters living in Elverston House had experienced during their time in the Hunters. Not good enough to be considered valuable, but cooperative enough to keep around to do the drudge work that no one else wanted to do.

“That’s not what banished means, Latika. Banished means cut off—no financial support, no housing, no contact. Nothing. Being a Hunter is deeply damaging to your sense of empathy, I get that, but please try to envision the person you were atseventeen and try to imagine what that’s like. Also, Kathy had given and given and given to the Hunters for her entire life—the way they treated her wasn’t acceptable either. Your sense of what’s normal—of what constitutes good and bad—is so warped, Latika.”

It was the first time I’d really thought of the Hunters as acult, because that’s what it was, wasn’t it? Latika wasn’t just naive, she was brainwashed. She saw the Council as the be all and end all. The hand that giveth and the hand that taketh away.

The little wobbles of doubt that kept sneaking up on me, reminding me that Astrid was going to be mad or that I was going to make life difficult for people, were steadied by Latika’s delusions.

Peaceful negotiations weren’t going to cut it. We needed a shakeup.

“Report me if you want.” I shrugged. “It won’t change anything.”

“You could come back,” Latika whispered. “You could ask them for forgiveness. Isn’t that what you want, Meera? Don’t you miss me? And Mom?”

“I have always missed you, Latika. And I’m confident that one day, we’ll find each other again, and the circumstances will be different. I’m choosing to believe in a future where that’s possible. And I miss the idea of having a mother who loved me and nurtured me and wanted what was best for me, but that’s not the mother I had. So no, I don’t miss her. I don’t want anyone’s forgiveness. I want them to beg for mine.”

I sidestepped her and climbed into the van, setting the bag of snacks on the passenger seat and getting out of there as quickly as I could.

For once, I didn’t feel like I was runningfromsomething, though. I was runningtosomething. To vengeance. To justice. To a cleansing by fire, and a new world beyond.

Verner hovered in the darkest corner of the room as night fell, only one light on the nightstand on for Adela’s benefit as I waited for her to arrive. Between the nerves and the snacks, I’d been on the verge of throwing up for the past hour.

I stood at the window, obsessively peering out at the parking lot through the blinds, on the lookout for a car that would definitely look too nice to be here.

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