25. Karma

TWENTY-FIVE

Karma

6 MONTHS LATER …

"Kid!"

The shout travelled through the house, jolting me from sleep. I glanced at the clock on the wall. It was ten past six in the morning.

"Crap," I muttered, swinging my legs over the side of the bed and grabbing my robe from where it was crumpled on the floor.

A slight groan jolted me to a stop as I was about to rush out into the family room. I glanced back to the bed. Aaron was passed out, his broad back uncovered, his legs tangled in the sheets. I tossed a pillow at his head, and he spun over, stumbling out of bed and hitting his knee on the bedside table. He swore beneath his breath, running his hand through his sandy blond hair.

"What the hell, Mik?— "

I picked up another pillow, throwing it at him a little harder than I had the first. "You're not allowed to call me that!"

He rolled his eyes. "Fine, Grey. But what the hell?—"

"It's past six." I pointed to the clock, rushing around the room and picking up his discarded clothes, throwing them at him. "You need to get out before he sees you."

I tied my robe together over my pyjamas and rushed back to the door, not even bothering to check that Aaron was getting dressed. I opened the back door to let Satan in, and we rushed upstairs together. We reached the kitchen just as Spencer was sitting down, placing a plate of pancakes onto the middle of the bare dining room table. Satan's breakfast was already in his bowl in the kitchen.

"You going to eat with your hands?" I asked Spencer.

"Setting the table is your job," he grumbled. "Hurry up, I'm starving."

"Why the pancakes?" I asked, fishing out the plates and the cutlery and carrying everything over, before taking my seat opposite him.

"It's a special occasion," he told me, giving me the look he gave me from time to time. His head was tilted down, his eyebrows slightly lifted, as though he were peering at me from over the top of a pair of non-existent spectacles.

"Oh?" My tone was casual, but there was a smile on my lips. "Does this have something to do with me graduating?"

"Can't I celebrate you graduating?" he asked defensively. "After the amount of time we spent arguing over your biology homework, I deserve these pancakes."

"Wait." I paused, slapping a pancake onto my plate. "These aren't even to congratulate me? They're to congratulate you?"

"Obviously." He was cutting his pancakes up into precise little bite-sized pieces.

I stopped eating for a moment to watch him. He was wearing his best shirt: a crystal-blue button-down, paired with a silver tie. His jacket was already hanging by the door. He had taken extra care to comb his hair and I could smell the special aftershave he saved for every Monday, when he had to hold a staff meeting at the restaurant.

I grinned. "Well. It's your big day. Congratulations, Spence."

" Spence is not my name."

"We've been over this. I'm not calling you Dad, or Captain Dad, or the Godfather. It's too weird. "

He grumbled something incoherently, but there was laughter in his eyes when he shook his head.

"Okay, fine," I relented. "I'll stop calling you Spence."

"Speaking of promises you've forgotten." He pointed his fork at me, and then shifted it a little to the left, pointing at the window. "Was that Adam sneaking out five minutes ago?"

How many times did I need to tell that idiot not to use the back gate?

"Wait." I blinked. "Adam? His name is Aaron."

"Austin, whatever, he's not allowed to sleep over."

"Not Austin, Aaron ."

"Evan isn't allowed to sleep over."

"Evan doesn't even sound like Aaron. Can he stay over if he promises not to sleep?" I asked, helping myself to my second pancake. This one had chocolate chips in it—there was always exactly one in the stack with chocolate chips, just for me.

"No. Jonathon isn't allowed to come over at all." Spencer sat back from the table, folding his arms over his chest and levelling me with a stern expression.

"What if he stays on one side of the gate and I stand on the other side, and we pass the bible to each other through the bars?"

He sighed. "I thought you were going to break up with this guy before graduation. "

"I know, but I forgot. I still have a few hours anyway. Graduation doesn't start for a while. You have no faith in me, Spence."

"I got another email from Nic last night," he said suddenly, causing me to drop my fork. It clattered loudly against my plate.

"So?" I picked it up again, stabbing my pancake angrily.

"So, you're going to have to forgive him eventually."

"Why should I? He left."

"He only went back to Stanford. He emailed every week to check up on you."

I growled out a sound. "He also told you not to tell me that he was emailing to check up on me."

"He thought it would be better if he gave you some space to settle in here without complicating things. Don't you want to know what he's been doing?"

"No." I stabbed my pancake again, before sighing, sneaking a look up at Spencer. "I mean … he's okay, though, right?"

"He wrote a book."

"What?"

"That was my reaction, but he did."

I frowned, a sick kind of nervousness swirling in my stomach. It was always the same feeling whenever I thought about Nicholai. There were too many emotions attached to my memory of him: reliance, need, anger, sorrow, loss. I understood the reasons he left, but it didn't lessen my anger.

Because if I wasn't angry, I would cry.

It still stung . His absence. The fact that the world so clearly didn't want us together.

"I can't figure out if I'm grateful to him or not," I finally said, some of my thoughts spilling over into words. "When you told him that you were going to ask me to live here, and he decided not to come back, to give me space to settle in, to give us space to become … whatever we are now."

"A family," Spencer mumbled. "That's what we are, just like Nicholai and I are a family. You might not be my daughter, but you live under my roof and eat my pancakes, so goddammit, we're a family."

I was tearing up a little bit, overwhelmed by those words and my lingering thoughts of Nicholai. Usually, Spencer and I operated under a cloud of dry humour and mutual respect. We were very rarely vulnerable around each other. He didn't talk about his dead wife and daughter, and I didn't talk about my parents. Not since the first day. We simply existed together, comfortable in our choice of companion. I imagined that if I could have chosen a brand-new father—if that was possible—I would have chosen someone like Spencer. He had been scarred by life just as much as I had, and yet he existed as a pillar for people to lean on.

He wasn't angry at the way Nicholai had disappeared. Instead, he had waited, sure that his son would reach out, determined to be there when he did. He had taken me in without even a conversation about whether I was going to stay or not. He slipped into the routine of taking care of me with the same silent ease that he did everything else. First, he started driving me to school and picking me up, and then he was helping me train. He would come to my track races every other weekend, sitting in the stands with all the other parents.

Several months ago, we went to see Fred and Shel again. Just in case they were concerned about me.

The meeting had lasted ten minutes.

After that, I transferred my estate money to Spencer, asking him to help me set up a college fund, and we began applying the very next week.

"Don't cry, kid."

I glanced up at the gruff words, realising that he was glumly pushing his food around on his plate. He couldn't handle it when I cried. So I smiled, quickly flicking an errant tear away from my cheek.

"Jean and Marc are going to be here any sec?—"

As if on cue, the front door opened, and Marcus' voice called up the stairs .

"Grey? Spence? I smell pancakes. I'm coming up."

"I'll get the coffee," Spencer said, standing up and taking his plate over to the sink.

They exploded into the kitchen in a flurry of excited activity. Marcus had a bag of pastries that he immediately handed over to Spencer, Jean following behind and wagging her finger at Spencer, before removing his hand from the coffee machine and pushing a to-go cup into it instead. Spencer took off the lid and looked inside. He sniffed it curiously.

"It's just a plain coffee, same as always," Jean said, rolling her eyes. She handed the next coffee off to me, and then claimed Spencer's seat at the table. "I wish I was graduating today. It's going to be so lonely at school without you two."

"We didn't hang out that much in school anyway," I told her, sipping my coffee.

She reached over the table and snatched the coffee out of my hand.

"These are for people who are going to miss me." She turned around to give me her shoulder as she drank my coffee.

"You should probably start getting ready," Spencer told me, before I could retort. "We have to leave in a couple of hours. I want to take some pictures of you around the school, because you're probably never going to go back there."

"You got that right." I agreed. "I just need some time to shower and change." I stood, picking up my plate—a half-eaten pancake still on it— and slipping it in front of Jean. "Eat," I said, tapping her on the shoulder. "I'm going to miss you so much."

She glanced up at me, and then finally sighed, handing the coffee back. I nudged the plate a little closer. She sighed again, tearing off a small section of pancake and quickly stuffing it into her mouth. That was good enough for me. I grinned at her and hurried down to my room, closing and locking the door.

Spencer had installed the lock about a month after my first night in the house, after I refused to lock the door to the stairs. He had said something about girls needing their privacy, but I was pretty sure that he had just expected Nicholai to come home at some point and barge into my room.

I moved to the bed and lowered to my knees, sticking my arm beneath and feeling around for the shoebox I kept there. I pulled it out and turned around, setting it over my thighs. There were several printouts inside. Articles that Nicholai had published in various scholarly journals. I skipped over all of them, finally pulling out the paper I was looking for. It was an interview published by a literary journal, introducing his new book, Changing Colours .

It released a week ago .

I flicked open the folded page, tracing my fingers over his picture. This should have been creepy or obsessive, but it didn't feel that way. I just needed the evidence that he was okay, that I hadn't ruined him in any way.

He had been there for me, helping me through the worst part of my life—the months after I was released from the institution. I had still been fresh from the death of my parents, after having been locked up for a year with nothing but my memories and the consequences of my actions, and nothing but the dulling effect of constant medication to tide me over from one day to the next.

The pain had not lessened during that time. If anything, it had only festered. The first incision in my heart had been made by my mother, the night I woke up to hear her screaming my name. The second incision had been made by my father, as he pleaded with me to fire the gun in my hands. As he begged me to save him by ending my mother's life.

But the infection? That had been given to me by a year of medicated solitude, a year of nothing but time, and nothing to do with that time but to retreat into myself.

Returning to the real world had been hard. Confronting. Frightening. I hadn't realised it at the time, but Nicholai hadn't recovered from his own infection. He had seen me—yet another girl with yet another problem—and he had felt the compulsion to save me, as he hadn't been able to save the others.

He hadn't supported me, though. Not really. If he had, I still would have been dropping off packages for Duke. I would have swapped one institution for another—ending up in jail. I hadn't needed him to support me. I had needed him to wake me up, and that was exactly what he had done. He had tossed me into the ocean and ordered me to decide. Swim, or drown. I had fought, pushing toward the sky, seeking air for my lungs—and from there, the pattern continued. Every day, he had forced me to fight. Every day, he had been there, pushing me and challenging me … and then the very same day I found Spencer, the very same day I found a place where I could stand on my own feet and belong …

Nicholai fell into that same ocean, and he drowned.

I sucked in a deep breath, scanning the article one more time. He had written a novel—not a textbook, not a research paper. A novel. About a girl fighting depression. The interviewer sounded impressed with it, congratulating him over and over again on the awards the book had won, telling him that he should have been proud for the voice that he was giving to young people struggling with mental health issues .

I laughed, finishing the article for the dozenth time before tossing it back into the box and shoving the box back under my bed. I was glad that he had found another way to help people, because he was a terrible psychologist.

Several hours later, I was being called up to the small, outdoor stage set up behind the gymnasium. The principal took my hand, shaking it once as the summer sun burned down the back of my neck. I had won the school's award for "most improved." I wanted to ask what , exactly, I had improved on, but I was afraid I wouldn't like the answer.

"Congratulations," he told me, his pat on the back more of a push in the direction of the steps.

I had been hearing that word all day. Congratulations. It was delivered to me in varying degrees of surprise, or pride. Most of my teachers acted as though they were somehow individually responsible for the fact that I had survived another year of life, even though I couldn't recall a single instance of them having contributed to my happiness in any way.

"We're so proud of our Miss Grey," the principal had said, shaking Spencer's hand before the ceremony. "So very proud. Where has she applied?"

Our Miss Grey. Wow.

"She applied for a track scholarship at Stanford," Spencer had responded. "And you should be proud. She studied her ass off, even though her teachers were too scared to talk to her." He clapped the other man on the back with a single, too-heavy thump, before drawing me away.

I remembered that moment as the principal pushed me not-so-subtly toward the stairs. I carried my backhanded pity award to the other end of the stage and stepped down, pausing as the valedictorian was called to the stage. My eyes were on the rows of gathered people, and I spotted Spencer first, still standing from his seat clapping and smiling broadly. He would probably keep clapping until I sat down again. I started to smile back, but it quickly fell from my face because there was someone standing in the middle of the aisle, level with the back row.

He was taller than the other people milling at the back, his broad shoulders wrapped in a formal jacket, his stance almost challenging—legs spread, hands pushed into his pockets.

Nicholai Fell looked as out-of-place as ever, his expression intense as he watched me. My heart was beating too fast all of a sudden .

Was he back ?

I quickly turned away from him, focussing on a familiar face a few rows down from the left side of the stage. Jean. She was sitting with Smith and Alicia. They both waved as I glanced over to them, and I waved back, but paused again, my hand stuck in the air. They weren't alone. Duke was sitting at the end of their row, his arms crossed over his chest, smirking at me. I ducked my head down, hurrying straight past the rows of chairs. I caught the concerned look on Spencer's face and shook my head at him, just barely. I'm fine . He didn't look convinced, but he sat slowly back down. He always gave me my space.

I ran to the gymnasium, pushing inside and hurrying toward the locker rooms. Everything was blessedly empty, but I still closed the door anyway before sinking down to one of the benches, my head falling into my hands. My phone buzzed, and I pulled it out of my pocket. There was a message from Jean.

Everything okay?

There was also another message from Aaron.

You were supposed to pick me up on the way to graduation!

Shit, I forgot to break up with him again.

I started to text back, but the door flew open behind me, and I spun around, jumping to my feet. Duke was standing in the doorway, the smirk still on his face.

"Hey, Grey-girl, long time no see. How you been?"

He was walking toward me, reaching out to touch my arm. I quickly flinched away, and that made him pause, a frown falling over his face.

"I don't really want to talk to you right now," I told him, taking several steps away. "You're lucky I didn't tell the cops about you burning my trailer down."

"Aw, nah, babe." He laughed, moving to sit down on the bench I had vacated. "That was Trip, not me. I would never do that."

"Trip had no reason to do it."

"Weren't you fucking him, too?" Duke asked, still laughing. "Maybe he was pissed when you stopped. Maybe he felt rejected."

"You know what?" I stopped trying to back away from him, turning instead to face one of the lockers. "I don't want to talk to you, Duke. Leave me alone."

I knew how I looked, my shoulders a little stooped, my head lowered, not daring to make eye-contact with him. I looked vulnerable. It was how he was used to seeing me, and I used that to my advantage now. His hand appeared beside mine, fingers spreading out against the metal locker door. His left hand gripped my hip, and his words became softer, whispered out against my ear.

"It doesn't really matter what you want though, does it, Grey? Because you'll let me do anything."

I was gripping my bag—the plain tote I had begun to carry around after Spencer tried to buy me a handbag. My right hand was already slipping into it, gripping the handle of my taser. Another gift from Spencer.

You're never going to be helpless again , he had told me.

"I let you burn down my home," I answered Duke. "Just like you burned down all of those shops, including the butcher Trip's dad owned."

Duke laughed, low and husky. "How'd you figure that out?"

"Every time you were watching the news, they were reporting a fire. And you burned my home down ."

"He didn't pay me all the money he owed me," Duke answered, pressing the front of his body into the back of mine. His hand slipped from my hip to my stomach.

"My mom was a coke-addict," I ground out. "I think it might have been what finally ruined our lives. Maybe you were the one dealing it to her."

"Doubt it," he answered. "I just distribute it to the dealers and punish the people who don't pay up. If she ever came home all banged up … well then … yeah, maybe I did know her. Small town, after all."

That was all I had needed. I snapped my elbow back, twisting my body slightly to the side and putting all of my weight back into my arm. It cracked against his nose, sending him stumbling back, and I whirled around, tasing him before he had even a second to reach for the gun he was probably packing. I doubted Duke would go anywhere without it, considering he hung around the trailer park with it tucked into the back of his pants.

He dropped to the ground, spasming as he ground out sounds between his teeth. I charged the volts and hit him again, kneeling beside him until he stopped flopping around.

I searched his pockets then, coming up with at least nine ounces of white powder, divided up into three separate little packets. I dipped my finger into one of them, opening his mouth and rubbing it into his gums, before I tipped some beneath his tongue. It would need time to properly dissolve into his bloodstream, but time was something we had. I tucked the bags back into his pocket and then used my foot to roll him onto his side. The barrel of his gun glinted at me, poking out of the back of his jeans. I pulled it out, covering my fingerprints with some paper towel. I fired a single shot at the wall, placed it back into his hand, and then I washed my own hands in the sink.

Five minutes. That was how long it took for people to come running into the gym.

"He's high or something," I called out, standing a few steps away from the locker room, pointing to the doorway. "He passed out, but he has a gun."

"Are you okay?" One of the teachers grabbed my arm, herding me out of the room while the others all crowded into the locker room, one of them whipping out their phone to call an ambulance.

"What the hell happened?" Spencer's voice rose above the rest, and the teacher beside me stepped away. "I've got it from here," he announced, a familiar arm sliding around my shoulders, leading me away.

"I saw that boy follow you in there," he said, once we were out of earshot.

"He did."

"Tell me you didn't shoot him. Save that job for me, at least."

I laughed. "I didn't kill him. But … I think his life is about to change."

"I'm assuming he isn't about to come into a significant inheritance from an estranged family member."

"A little less fortunate than that."

"You gave him cancer? "

I scoffed, glancing up at Spencer. He was steering me right out of the gymnasium, toward the parking lot. He didn't even care about what we were leaving behind, he just wanted to get me out of there.

"Nicholai came," I whispered, as we neared the car.

"I know. I had to stop him from following you and that other guy into the gym. Wasn't sure if you wanted … privacy."

"I needed to do what I did. It was a long time coming."

"Then I'm glad I held Nic back."

"Where is he now?"

"I told him to leave. Said you'd let me know when you were ready to talk to him."

"That's your son , Spence." I jumped into the passenger seat, pulling the door closed.

He nodded, turning over the engine, his eyes straying to the windshield. "He'll always be my son," he agreed slowly. "But … you're mine to protect, Mika. Never doubt that."