Page 90 of Half the Summer's Night
As soon as the words leave my mouth, I don’t know if they’re true. I mean, yes, she didn’t run after I killed her attacker, but that was about saving her life. And as for last night?—
Well, I haven’t seen her since then, have I? Maybe the daylight changed how she saw what we did. Maybe it turned it into a sin.
“But she hasn’t even seen your face,” Charlotte says suddenly. “Or, excuse me, she doesn’trealizeshe’s seen your face.”
I freeze. Charlotte keeps her eyes on the road.
“I told you,” I say darkly. “Thisis my face. This is who I am.”
But the words feel ashy on my tongue. For the first time, they feel—untrue. I’ve worn this mask since I killed Uncle Nash, since I started killing for myself instead of for him. Rowan was his weapon. Then Rowan became my secret identity. And now?—
After today, after seeing all that bright red blood in the gleaming sunlight, the whole arrangement feels hollow.
“Rowan,” Charlotte says. “Can I give you some sisterly advice?”
I want to sayno. Or rather, I feel like I should say no. But the word just doesn’t come out. So I don’t say anything.
And that’s enough permission for Charlotte, apparently. “You need to take that fucking mask off. Not right now.” She glances at me, and her features are getting hard to see. The sun is already half hidden by the horizon. I should be with Abi right now. Instead, I’m in this car, covered in blood and feeling alive while a stranger-who-doesn’t-feel-like-a-stranger gives me unsolicited advice. Yet I don’t protest.
“I mean, you should take the mask off in front of Abi,” Charlotte continues.
My skin prickles with something like electricity.
“If you want to be with her,” Charlotte says, fixing her gaze on the road. “She has to see all of you. She has to see you covered in blood. Has to know what you’re truly capable of doing.”
I shift, my chest tight. “What does that have to do with my killing face?”
“That’s my whole fucking point,” Charlotte says. “That’s not your face. It’s a mask. You wear it when you kill people, fine. We’ve all got our thing. Like I said, Jaxon does it. My friend Sawyer, he wears a mask, too. But you aren’t going to kill Abi, are you?”
“No!” I shout, horrified by the thought. I would kill every person in this world before I would harm Abilene Snow. Other people?—
other humans
—Are for killing. But Abi is for protecting.
“Then why are you wearing your killing face to be around her?” Charlotte asks.
The question stuns me. Brings me up short. I fumble around for an answer, my tongue dry. “Because,” I say. “Because this is who I am.”
“Of course it is,” Charlotte says. “But you’re also Rowan Hanover. Rowan and—” She flaps her hand toward me. “This guy. The guy in the mask? They’re the same.”
I open my mouth to protest, but Charlotte surges on.
“You told me you’ve been killing people to talk to her,” Charlotte says, and I cringe, regretting ever sharing that with her earlier. “Well, maybe you should stop murdering randos because you want to talk to the woman you love. Just fucking talk to her and murder the randos because you like it.” She looks over at me, and in the encroaching darkness, just for a second, her eyes seem to gleam like a cat’s. “That’s what we did this afternoon. That’s what you’re meant to do.”
I turn away from her. My killing face feels thick and restrictive, like it has all day. And I think about those times I’ve lifted it just enough to kiss Abi. To taste her lips and her cunt.
What would it be like to feel her hands on my skin? Or her mouth? To bury myself between her breasts and breathe in the sweetness of her flesh?
Heat surges through me, hot and sparking from all the death earlier. Violent, bloody, pointless death. Not clean. Not coordinated. Charlotte and I left a trail of destruction that can’t be anything but what it is.
And it felt right. It did. Just like it felt right the first time I looked into Abi’s eyes, certain she was the one person in the universe who would accept me. She had smiled at me that day at the funeral. A bright, genuine smile. The same smile she gives me when I’m with her as Rowan Hanover.
Would you still smile like that at Rowan, at me, if she knew?
“Just think about it,” Charlotte says. “Like I said, it’s just a bit of sisterly advice.”
“Fine,” I mutter, looking out at the dark highway. I can just make out the lights of Rosado up ahead. It’s full dark, but at least it’s not late.
