“Truly the most important duty.” I pick at my cookie, thinking. “I think they were all just so relieved that I was back to full Slayage, they didn’t want to question it.”
“It does give them a purpose. Don’t get me wrong, Sanctuary is lovely. Really smashing job. But getting their Slayer back makes them feel like they’re doing what they’re supposed to. And probably makes them feel safer, what with Sean still out there and who knows what other threats.”
“I don’t make everyone feel safer.” I frown, looking at the cookie in my hand and remembering an extra cookie, years ago, delivered to me during lunch by my impossible crush. My free hand drifts to my lips, haunted by the feel of Leo’s on them. It turned out my crush was not so impossible after all. And yet more impossible than I could have ever drea
med. I hate that I can’t even linger on the memory of the kiss, since it happened midbetrayal.
“What do you mean?” Imogen asks. “Who doesn’t feel safe with you?”
“That werewolf family my mom went to meet with. I scared them.”
“You’re very frightening. It’s the rainbow-striped socks, I think.” Her teasing tone disappears when she sees the pained look on my face. She scoots onto the counter next to me. “Tell me what happened.”
It’s easier to talk side by side, when I don’t have to look at her. “I lost it.” I pause. “No, that’s not true. I didn’t lose it. I knew exactly what I was doing. My mom was pinned down by two mercenaries. Guns and everything. And I took them out. Everything I did felt right at the time. But the way the family looked at me—the way my mother looked at me—it was like I was the monster.” I flinch. “I mean, technically I did use one of them as a shield against being shot.”
“You were following your instincts, right?”
“Mostly. I held back, actually.”
“Don’t.” Imogen sounds confident, matter-of-fact. “You’re a Slayer. Your instincts keep you alive. Your instincts kept your mother and that ungrateful family alive. So next time your instincts tell you to go harder, go harder. Don’t question yourself.”
“It felt … dark, though.”
“Did it? Or were you just afraid of it because of how others were judging you?”
I frown. If my mother hadn’t been there, what would I have done? “I’m not sure. It bothers me, though. Instead of looking for ways to heal, lately I’ve been much better at seeing ways to hurt.”
“People change. You grow up. You evolve. It’s okay.”
For years I longed for change. Lobbied for it, even. Constantly asked the Watchers Council to do things differently. To shift the way we engaged with the world, to look for better solutions. Less violent ways of navigating potential threats. A new structure within our ranks that stopped valuing those who could kill over everyone else.
And I got what I asked for. All it took was nearly every Watcher being wiped out, becoming a Slayer, and losing my sister as she went to find out who she was without the structure of the Watchers to hold her up.
I hate change. No wonder the Watchers never changed anything. “Change sucks.”
Imogen nudges me with her shoulder. “It doesn’t have to. Also, you still haven’t told me how you got your power back. Don’t think I’ve forgotten.”
I hadn’t meant to derail the conversation. Or maybe I had. I don’t want to say it, but it’s time. “Leo.” It’s the first I’ve said his name aloud in ages. I want it to surround me like a hug. Instead, it just falls from my mouth.
“What about him?”
“He gave the power back to me.”
Imogen hops off the counter. “Whoa, whoa, hold up. Leo’s dead.”
“Yeah.” I nod, miserable. After the dream where he restored everything in a seething burst of energy, I waited for him. But he never showed up. “Maybe a cambion thing. He was half demon, after all. Might have been able to stick around in some form long enough to transfer the power. Walking on dreams to get here or something.”
“Have you researched it?”
I take another cookie and shove it in my mouth. “Slayer now, remember? I don’t have to research.”
“You really are claiming your destiny. I’m so proud.” She puts her hands over her heart, laughing, then turns as a timer announces another batch of cookies is done.
The truth is, I didn’t research cambions because it hurt too much. If Leo were still alive, he would have come back. He saved us, gave us enough time to defeat his mother. Everything we’re building here is because of him. I just wish he could see it. It’s his legacy as much as anything else. Sometimes I let myself imagine that he survived. That we all yelled at him for lying to us about his mother, that we actually got to work through the anger to the good stuff on the other side.
But it hurts, just like the idea of researching him or probing the mess of unresolved emotions he left along with my renewed powers. I talk to Imogen’s back. “Don’t tell anyone, okay?” It’s too sad and too special and Rhys would pull it apart to find out how it worked, and my mother would clumsily try to comfort me, and I can’t deal with either option.
Imogen mimes zipping her lips. “I am a perfect graveyard of secrets. They come to me and are buried snug and tight, six feet under.” She resumes waltzing around the kitchen while I finish off the cookies. She doesn’t talk again until I get up to stumble to bed.