Page 17 of The Darkest Half

“Yeah. I did.”

“Then you couldn’t have cared much about her to send her to a place like that.”

Fuck, that hurt! Because it’s true. I don’t want to believe it, but it is what it is. I’d ignored the fact that I’d used Jackie to help Izabel. I didn’t really mean to. As much as I cared for Jackie, I care for Izabel more.

“Why did you send her?”

I didn’t expect that, although I should’ve.

“Well, I…”—I press my earlobe nervously between my thumb and index finger—“You wanna know the truth?”

“Always,” she echoes.

But she doesn’t look over at me, which leads me to believe she already knows what I’m going to say.

“I sent her because…I’m in love with you.” Fuck it, it’s true. And since we’re probably going to die, it seems only natural to be honest with her. And myself.

Izabel smiles faintly yet still doesn’t grace me with eye contact.

But then, surprisingly, she does. She looks right at me, a softness in her eyes laced with intellect.

“You’re not in love with me, Niklas,” she says. “You’re in love with the idea of me. I’m something you’ve always wanted, something you envied your brother for having.”

“And what would that something be exactly?” I ask, feeling slighted.

“Someone to love you back.”

Choking on the unwanted rush of emotion that raced into my throat from somewhere deeper in my body, I turn my head the other way so she can’t see my glossed-over eyes. I swallow hard and try like hell to compose myself.

“You’ve been rejected and abandoned by everyone in your life since you were a boy,” she says. “Your father. Your mother. The Order. The only person who has ever loved you unconditionally is Victor. And the one woman who did love you back, the only woman you ever truly loved—Claire—was taken from you tragically, unfairly. And I’m sorry for that, Niklas.” I feel her eyes on me. “But you’re not in love with me. And you never could be. Because you’re incapable of betraying your brother, even for the sake of love.”

“But—”

“No, let me finish.”

My mouth snaps closed; I’m looking at her again, but I don’t remember ever moving my head.

“Out of all of us, Niklas,” she goes on, “you’re the one who most fits in the outside world. You’re the one who deserves a normal life, the one whose emotions have never been compromised by the darkness and cruelty of this world, the world behind the curtain. You’re the only one of us who doesn’t belong here.”

“That’s fucking bullshit, Izzy.”

“It’s not,” she says and is about to tell me precisely why. “Victor wanted that for me, for both of us. It’s why he tried to push us together, to save us both from this life. But I’m vengeful, Nik. I’m hateful. I’m cruel. I’ve enjoyed killing some of the people I’ve killed—I’ve been corrupted by everything. And I don’t regret it. I don’t lament my old life or the life stolen from me. I don’t want to live in that unconscious world where people work at the same boring jobs every day, go out on the weekends to party, go on vacations to relax, have kids, and get married and divorced and married again.” She pauses a moment and seizes my gaze. “I could never be that person, even though I was born into it. I had a normal, fucked-up life before my mother took me to Mexico as a teenager. I went to school, played the piano, went to the movies and concerts, and graffitied a building or two. I had a normal life. But you…”

“I what? Go on and tell me.” Please, don’t fucking tell me anymore.

“You, Nik, never experienced life without The Order and all the shit that comes with it hanging over your head. Sure, you saw things and experienced things that were as close to a normal life as you’d ever get, but never without the baggage. The load on your back. The anvil on your head. Yet, somehow, without ever truly knowing what a normal life is and could be, you’re the only one of us who understands it.”

“So, did I win a prize or something?” I don’t want to believe the shit coming out of her mouth, but it’s kind of hard not to.

She nods. “Yeah. I think you did, Niklas. I think you won the biggest prize of all—your humanity.”

I scoff. “Some fucking prize.”

The pull of her sincere smile draws my eyes to hers again.

“It’s what you love and cherish most of all, that humanity of yours that you had to work so fucking hard to obtain. And even harder to keep. But you never lost it. And it never faded or fluctuated or let you down. You did what you had to do to stay alive and to keep your brother alive, but you never gave in to it. You never let it break you. And for that, you are the most human of us all.”

“So, then what does that make you?” I’m only trying to take the spotlight off me; the discomfort is, well, uncomfortable.

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