“You were there?” I asked, outraged and horrified and confused about why Dean was allowed to work in the District after doing something so horrible.
“I was.” Finn sucked in a deep breath like the memory hurt and motioned to the cut below his ear. “I fought Dean for the knife when he kept stabbing Raif, which is how I got the scar. The cut was bigger than this, from my ear all the way down my neck. The part that wasn’t very deep didn’t scar, though. Just this little part. I almost died from it.”
Years had passed, but the thought of Finn almost dying, of him bleeding, of his beautiful, purple blood pouring from the wound made tears come to my eyes, and I had to blink them back. Even worse was the knowledge that I’d dated the very monster who’d done those things. Had fallen for his tricks and let him kiss and hold me.
I shuddered, my mind replaying everything that had gone on between us in reverse. When I got to the night at the bar, I felt suddenly like the world had shifted. We’d all hung out together. My cousin and her husband, me, and Finn and Dean. How had Finn been able to stand it? How had Rye let it happen? Why didn’t either of them tell me what that monster had done when they’d first learned we were going on a date?
“I can’t believe no one ever told me this,” I said, shaking my head. “And Rye made you hang out with Dean! How could he? Why would he?”
Finn put his hand on my knee. “He doesn’t know.”
“What?” I looked at him uncomprehendingly. “How does he not know you almost died?”
“He knows that,” Finn explained. “But he wasn’t there. He never saw the man who did it. When Dean showed up at the gate, I decided it was best to keep who he was to myself. My family had gone through so much already, and I didn’t want them to have to worry that the man who’d tried to kill me might try again.”
It sickened me, thinking about Dean getting away with what he’d done. Knowing he was allowed to walk around, masquerading as a normal human when he was nothing but pure evil.
Not only that. He shouldn’t have been alive. How was he? Murder was punishable by death. Polis didn’t have the resources to keep killers alive, so they didn’t. There were no appeals like they showed in the movies, no years of sitting on death row. These days, you were marched in front of a firing squad the second you were found guilty.
“Why didn’t they arrest Dean?”
“They did,” Finn said. “The guards finally arrived and broke up the fight. They even arrested him. I was barely alive by then, and Raif was already dead. It took me two weeks to recover, which for a Veilorian is a long time. I can’t tell you exactly what happened to Dean after that. You’d have to ask him,” I cringed to illustrate how abhorrent I found the idea, “but I do know that less than six months passed before he showed up in a uniform. Guarding the gate.”
Finn stopped talking, and I sat back, still too stunned to speak. None of what he’d said should have made sense, and yet it did. Dean had killed someone, but not a person. A Veilorian. Even when Mayor Gunderson was in office, it was doubtful any human jury would have convicted him. Hell, he probably got the job at the gate because he’d proven he was capable of killing a Veilorian if necessary.
“I’m sorry,” I finally said. “It’s no wonder you hated humans so much by the time you met me.”
“You were right about me, though,” Finn replied. “I was letting my hate keep me prisoner.”
I took his hand. “I can’t say I really blame you all that much. I’m not sure I would have been able to forgive something like that. It’s unimaginable.”
“You would have,” he whispered. “Because you’re a better person than I am.”
I didn’t contradict him, but I didn’t think he was right. Finn was an amazing person, and even though he struggled with who he was and where he’d come from, deep down he was quite possibly the best person left on this planet. And I loved him for it.
Finn was at work the next afternoon when someone knocked at the door. I went to answer it, unsure who it could be. Ione didn’t knock, and Rye would be at work right now, and since Finn was as well, it seemed unlikely anyone else would show up at the house in the middle of the day.
When I pulled the door open and found a uniformed Brentwood standing in front of me, my body stiffened. Was this the moment I’d been dreading? Had the mayor managed to get her law passed? Had they come here to drag me away so some doctor could operate on me, legally making it impossible for me to ever have a child?
My hand went to my stomach as I looked past the guard, expecting to see more men, but he was alone.
“I’m not here for that,” Brentwood said as if reading my thoughts.
“What is it?”
He’d been kind to me in the past, and it wasn’t the first time he’d helped the people living in the District. On Landing Day, he’d been in the city square, and while I hadn’t known what he was doing at the time, I now suspected he’d warned people about the incoming mob. Then, instead of watching the chaos unfold the way the other guards had, Brentwood had helped other Veilorians get away.
I tried to remind myself of those things as I waited for him to explain why he was standing in front of me right now, but it wasn’t easy. After being dragged from the District in the middle of the night, I was hardwired to expect the worst.
“I have a
