Page 58 of We Are the Match
“He wouldn’t, anyway,” Helen says. “It’s not that he’s above staging something he wants staged. But he’s embarrassed that this happened, and angry that it happened under his nose. This wasn’t him.”
In the silence of the warehouse, we are left staring at each other, both of us holding back. Zarek’s rage tells me there is truth in what Helen says, but my gut tells me there is more to this recent bombing than we yet understand.
The warehouse shows nothing—there are footprints outside leading to the door, telling me that there have been visitors since it last rained a few days ago, but it has been cleaned—or at least visited—fairly recently.
“Tommy,” I say. “You’ll need to get the boat moving as soon as we’re done here.”
“Whatever it is you’re planning,” he begins. “Is it going to get you both hurt?”
“I’m going to blow this place up,” I tell him. “And leave a message for the queen.”
Helen’s eyes light. “I can help,” she says.
“I know you can, Princess.” I grin at her, enjoying the blush that answers my use of the wordprincess.
Helen runs a hand down her face as if she can wipe away the heat there, and turns to Tommy abruptly, hiding her face from me.
“Tommy,” she says. “This is the fun part.”
He pinches the bridge of his nose, shaking his head. “You two,” he says. “Are going to be the death of me.”
Chapter 18
Helen
I have not laid charges in years now.
Not since Mama and I played on abandoned islands. Not since my father decided he could not control my impulsiveness any more than he could control my ability to blow up a building. A marina, once, because I was angry. An outbuilding on our own property, because my father screamed at my mother and me and it incensed me. A cliff behind Altea’s very own house once, just because I was fifteen and I could.
But as I place explosives, as I use the solidox and sugar to make something that will bring a building down, Ifeel.
I am in my body.
I am here, feet firmly planted on this island Paris brought us to, the cool of the night chasing goose bumps up my arms, Paris beside me.
I feel.
I am here.
I am alive, for the first time in ten years.
I gather some of the discarded materials, pack them into an old, heavy workman’s bag. I have not had a bomb-making kit in so many years, and I—I am sure my father has supplies that I could use, but I find I would rather have materials all my own to rely on.
I lay the last charge and walk outside beside Paris.
She holds her lighter out to me, a hard metal shell with aPengraved on it, for all the world looking like her own symbol, the kind that would be emblazoned above a door if she was one of the Families.
“Paris,” I breathe, closing my fingers around the lighter.
She is looking at me strangely. “Oh, Princess,” she says softly. “I’ve never seen you quite like this.”
This—this is how I am meant to be. My fingers are dusty from the work, my jacket discarded beside me, sleeves rolled up.
“Mama would love to be here for this,” I blurt, because I cannot help it, because I am so alive it is all spilling out of me. “She would have helped us with this, Paris. She would have helped us with all of this.”
Something almost like guilt flickers in Paris’s eyes for a moment, her hand falling away from mine.
“If your father didn’t keep you locked in that mansion all your life,” Paris says. “Who would you become, Princess?”
