Page 87 of With a Vengeance

“Nothing,” Anna says, choosing the lie over telling Dante that she swore she saw her mutilated brother. Again. “I think I’m just tired.”

An understatement. Not counting her nightmare in the observation car, it’s been twenty-four hours since she last slept. When she adds in fear and stress, Anna thinks it’s a wonder she can remain conscious.

“When did you last eat?” Dante says.

The last thing she can remember is forcing down some toast and coffee at breakfast. After that she was too anxious to eat. Once she and Seamus boarded the Phoenix, food was the furthest thing from her mind.

“Twenty hours ago.”

Dante lets out a low whistle. “See? I knew you should have had a sandwich. Food is fuel. That’s why I went back and got mine.”

“After we gathered everyone in the observation car?”

“Yeah,” Dante says. “I went back to the galley, grabbed what was left of my sandwich, and took it to my room.”

Anna sighs. It was Dante this whole time. Not Judd or her tired mind conjuring a stranger or Tommy back from the dead. Yet Anna had so wanted it to be Tommy. She realizes that now.

The old Tommy.

The brother who’d loved her so much and whom she had adored in return.

Anna wanted to see him and hug him and hear his voice so much that, now that it’s confirmed it wasn’t him, she’s left with a shimmering feeling she can’t quite identify. An inchoate ache.

“I miss him,” she says as tears sting her eyes. “I miss Tommy. I miss my parents.”

And she misses the person she used to be.

When her family died, Anna’s world shrank to practicallynothing. Life with Aunt Retta was as isolated as could be. They went nowhere, saw no one. When her aunt died, Anna spent all her time plotting and planning, not because she wanted to do it, but because she felt like she had to. That she’d be a terrible daughter and sister if she didn’t try to enact some form of vengeance.

But it’s come at great cost. Not just financially but emotionally. She’s denied herself so many of the things other women her age get to experience. Happiness. Fun. And, yes, love. Reggie was right. It is a sad way to go through life.

The realization shakes loose one of the tears, which rolls down Anna’s face. Dante wipes it away, his touch a gentle caress. When he pulls Anna to his chest, she goes willingly, longing for some small moment of comfort in an otherwise brutal night.

Dante looks at her, lowering his mouth to hers, attempting a kiss. Anna remembers how good it felt to be kissed by Dante. She recalls it so well that it feels like they’ve traveled a dozen years into the past. That she’s sixteen and he’s eighteen and her family is still alive and so they’re kissing beneath the willow on the edge of her childhood yard because they know they won’t be seen there.

Unable to resist the pull of the past any longer, Anna lifts her face to meet his. But before she can reach Dante and fall under the spell of his kiss, she becomes aware of someone else in the corridor.

Seamus.

He looks at them, half-dazed. Like he’s just seen a ghost. The only thing that snaps him out of it is the sight of Anna and Dante pressed together.

“What’s going on here?” he says.

Anna backs away from Dante. “I was looking for you.”

“And I was searching the back of the train,” Seamus says, finally noticing her bedraggled state. “What happened?”

“She fainted,” Dante says.

“After I stitched up Agent Davis,” Anna adds. “Judd stabbed him.”

“He did?” Seamus says. “Where?”

“The galley.”

Dante goes wide-eyed. “When?”

Anna’s no longer sure. Time has gotten blurrier the longer the voyage goes on. It could have been an hour ago or it could have been mere minutes. Anna decides to split the difference. “A half hour ago.”

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