Page 115 of Infernal

“You can’t stay here forever, you know,” he said, his voice a gentle warning. “You have to go home eventually.”

“And where would that be?” I asked him, hoping he had an answer to that, because as it stood, I really had no idea where that was anymore. When he failed to produce an answer, I took another bite and said, “Exactly.”

“You can always come back to the Manor. You know that.”

“That’s the last place I can be right now.” I didn’t bother elaborating, but I assumed he knew why. “Besides, I don’t plan on staying here forever. I’m taking my finals next week and then I’m leaving for the summer with Tessa,” I said and shoveled another piece of chicken into my mouth.

His head recoiled. Obviously, he wasn’t aware of this plan.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” I said and puffed out another sour-kissed laugh. “There’s actually something she didn’t tell you about me? Wonders never cease.”

“You’re leaving?” He appeared to be taking the news a lot worse than I’d anticipated. “Jemma, you can’t just leave,” he said, his expression turning sullen as tension crept across his forehead.

“Well, I sure as shit can’t stay here. This place is…this whole town is....” I shook my head, fully decided. “I just can’t be here anymore. Enough people have died because of me.”

His brows snapped together. “Because ofyou?”

I looked at him like he was daft. “Everybody that comes near me ends up dead, Gabriel. Or did you miss that part?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. You can’t blame yourself for—”

“Do you seriously want me to run through the death toll right now?” I snapped, refusing to allow him to finish his sentence. I couldn’t stand to hear him try to justify this. He was lying to himself, and we both knew it.

“I’m cursed, Gabriel. It’s as simple as that.” I held up a hand when he tried to protest. “I get it now, and I accept it. This is what’s best for everybody. I’m not just some regular teen with a bright future ahead of her, so I need to stop acting like one. If I leave with Tessa, I’ll get the experience I need to do the thing that I’mactuallysupposed to be doing.”

As painful and ugly as the truth was,thiswas the life that I’d been dealt, and I needed to stop playing pretend with it. My purpose was to hunt demons and vampires. Demons like the ones that killed my best friend and vampires like the one that killed my father. And it wasn’t something you could do with one foot in and one foot out like I’d been doing. You had to be all in, all the time, because if you weren’t—if you tripped or hesitated or let down your guard for even the slightest second—innocent people wound up dead.

And I finally,finallyunderstood that.

He leaned back in his chair, absorbing it. He knew I was right. I could see it in his face, yet the apprehension was still there. Was he worried that I wasn’t ready to go on the road yet? Or was it something else?

“Stop looking at me like,” I said, chancing another look at him in between bites. “I’ll be fine.”

“I know you will,” he said without the slightest hint of hesitation or doubt. “You’re one of the strongest Slayers I know. Even if you don’t believe it yet.”

I felt my eyes well up at his words, for just a second, and then I jammed the emotion away. The only tears I allowed to fall were tears of pain. Not of compliments. Not of good sentiments.

“So, what’s with the gloomy face then?” I asked, putting the conversation back on track.

“It’s just that…” He frowned again, searching for his words. “You and Dominic are—”

“Bloodbonded,” I answered for him and shoved a forkful of potatoes into my mouth.

I had already thought about that and decided it would just be another layer to the pain I would be taking with me. I expected it. Iwanted it. I was on a mission to atone for my mistakes, and self-inflicted pain was the only way I knew to do that. “If I can take it, so can he.”

He mulled that over silently as I finished up the last of my food, grateful that he’d forced it on me.

“When are you going to tell him?” he asked after a while, and my heart seized in my chest.

“I was sort of…hoping…that…” I looked up at him under my lashes, “you would do it?”

“Jemma,” he reproached.

“Don’t look at me like that, Gabriel. I have a lot of loose ends to tie up before I go. I just thought it would be better if you did it.” I was such a lying coward, it wasn’t even legal.

“He should hear it from you.”

I didn’t argue that, because heshouldhear it from me. But I didn’t know how to tell him goodbye, and I was too afraid to try.

---