I close my eyes again and steel myself. “Just do it. Remove it all.”
“Are you sure?”
I nod quickly. “Just take it all away. I think I’m okay now.”
“Okay,” Hunter says.
Like a whoosh, the tiny blanket disappears from that corner of my mind. The stuff there is slow and sluggish. It tries to come up. I get snippets of it. My mom. That lonely, empty room. Vic Blanchet. The third task, a confrontation of my past.
The self-loathing. That one comes up quicker than the rest, snaking its way between the guilt and anxiety and sadness, finding a comfortable resting place.
Murderer, it whispers. Murderer.
I let out a deep breath, my hands shaking. I ball them into tight fists, feeling my fingernails dig into my palms. I never did get a chance to cut them.
This, though, I know how to deal with. I’ve been dealing with it for years and years.
No, I yell in my mind, grabbing hold of its slithery tail. I’m not a murderer.
I yank it, dragging it away from the forefront of my mind, untangling it from my other emotions.
I love myself. I’m a good person.
I hurl it into the corner and shut the door, shutting it all away.
Sighing, I open my eyes and let my shoulders relax.
Hunter throws his arms around me. “You did it!”
“Uh, yes,” I say, feeling awkward, not sure what to do.
He backs away quickly, his face a slight shade of pink. “Sorry.”
“It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.” I feel even more awkward and guilty now, especially because I know Hunter can sense it.
“Well,” Li says, looking between the two of us with a grin, “I’m glad it all worked out. You did really well, Chrys.”
“I didn’t really do anything though,” I say.
“Are you kidding? Give yourself some credit. It’s hard to face tough things like that. Why do you think people drown themselves in books and TV and food and alcohol? It’s because they want to escape. You had an escape too, but it’s a crutch. I hope you realize that now.”
“Yeah, I do. No offense, Hunter, but I kind of felt like a zombie under your control.”
He shrugs. “I’m not surprised. My gift makes people like that, especially if I lay it on too thick—the blanket.”
“The hug.”
We both laugh a little.
“So is that what you did to Carl?” I ask. “He wasn’t moving at all.”
He nods and looks away, putting his hand on the back of his neck. “Yeah, I went overboard, but I was just worried. I let him go a while back.”
“That’s good.”
He turns to Li. “He’ll probably tell everyone what happened, Li.”
She shrugs. “Yes but he has no proof, does he? Those small-town shops don’t have any cameras. We know that for a fact. We’ll monitor the news, see what gets out, but I don’t think you have to worry.” She gestures to the door. “Why don’t you guys go have dinner? I’ll go a little later.”
Hunter is about to stand up but then remembers the scanner on his lap. “Oh, he had this too. It can detect the gifted.”
He hands it to Li and she takes it. She turns it over in her hands, inspecting it.
She doesn’t say anything more, so Hunter and I exchange glances and then stand up to go. Hunter turns back with his hand on the door knob.
“Don’t you think this should count as her third task?” he asks.
“It doesn’t count, sorry,” Li says, still looking at the scanner.
“But she confronted her past.”
“Hmm, I don’t think so. Did you confront your past, Chrys? Or did you just put it all back where it belongs—forgotten in the depths of your mind?”
I look away with pursed lips.
“Seems like the latter to me,” Li says. “Don’t you think, Hunter?”
Hunter sighs and just opens the door. He walks beside me to the pavilion, both of us avoiding each other’s gaze.
Chapter 31
I’m Vic Blanchet again.
A tiny part of me is aware this is a dream, yet I feel helpless, unable to get out of it or change the scenery.
Vic—I—am walking down a dark alleyway in Paris with a young girl. The air is cool, the first touch of autumn, so the girl wraps her arms around herself tightly to keep herself warm in her skimpy dress.
“Hey, Vic,” she says, “maybe we should head back. It’s kind of dark and scary here.”
“No worries, love. Just a bit further,” we say. Our voice is smooth and deep, the kind of voice you’d want to hear talk you to sleep.
I’m not sure if we’re speaking in English, or if it’s French but my brain is just putting it in a way I can understand.
“Alright, just a bit,” the girl says, “and then let’s go to your place.”
“Here’s good,” we say, stopping.
We take her into our arms and kiss deeply. She smells and tastes like hard liquor and cigarettes. We pull away from her, leaning our forehead against hers. Her eyes are still closed and she wears a small smile.
We explore her back with a hand, finding a small spot in the middle where the thin fabric of her dress makes a large diamond of exposed skin.
We breathe in deeply. “You are so naive.”
The girl opens her eyes quickly, angry or perhaps shocked. “What are you going on about, Vic?”
We just laugh and rub our cheek against hers. She tries to push away but we have a firm grasp on her.
“Goodbye,” we whisper.
“What—”
The cold energy flows in from her back into our hand and she crumples to the ground. We flex our hand as the energy travels up our arm and into the rest of our body.
“Ah, so delicious,” we say.
The energy still coursing through our body, we pull out a small piece of paper from our pocket and a tiny pencil stub with no eraser. We
