28. Scarlett

I can’t stop shakingas I usher Mrs. Graves into the warehouse. The shadows in here seem to shift and dance, making me jumpy, which in turn makes Mrs. Graves jumpy. She keeps glancing back at me.

This underworld I chose to dive headfirst into has slowly stripped away everything from me, leaving me a hollow shell consumed by rage and an insatiable thirst for vengeance. I see that now…

But that wasn’t how it was supposed to go.

I was meant to be the avenging angel, the hand of justice striking down the monster that took my brother from me. Lyssa, with her cold, ruthless reputation as the Styx Syndicate’s infamous “Wolf.” She deserved to pay an eye for an eye, to have her life stripped away as cruelly as she stole Adam’s.

But Lyssa didn’t kill my brother.

And all I’ve done was kill on instruction for the last few years. I’m no better than any of the people I’ve been hunting down.

I’ve dragged an innocent woman, a mother figure to both Lyssa and Hadria, into danger. Made her a pawn in my dangerous game.

Mrs. Graves settles onto a wooden crate without a word of complaint, the picture of steadfast resilience, though she keeps staring at me, watching me. Despite the gloomy shadows distorting the corners of the room, she exudes an aura of calm certainty that seems to mock the anguished storm raging within me.

“Ruby, dear,” she says in a soft, soothing tone. “Why don’t you sit and catch your breath?”

I ignore her, pacing like a caged animal before her. How can she be so unruffled? So at peace when her life is in peril because of the decisions I’ve made, the paths I’ve chosen to walk?

“Ruby—”

“Scarlett,” I mutter.

“I beg your?—”

“My name is Scarlett, not Ruby.”

“I see. Scarlett, then. Why don’t you have a seat?”

“Don’t you get it?” I snap, whirling to face her again. “This wasn’t the plan. You weren’t supposed to be involved in this…this nightmare.”

“And yet, here we are,” she replies, her tone carrying no rebuke, only gentle understanding.

“We’re not even supposed to be here,” I say miserably. “I’m supposed to bring you to…” I trail off. I don’t want to scare her more than I already have.

I’m not a monster. I just—I just play one, very convincingly.

Mrs. Graves is quiet for a while as I pace back and forth, but at last she says, “Tell me, Scarlett, what compelled you to bring me here instead of to your…employer?”

The question gives me pause, and I search her placid features, her warm eyes, for any hint of trickery. But I find none, only that same empathetic compassion that likely prompted her to take in Lyssa and Hadria.

And even more strangely, perhaps, I see no judgment or condemnation.

“Please don’t ask me.” I sound like a child to my own ears.

“Now, Scarlett,” she says, in a brisk, no-nonsense tone, “if I’m going to die, I’d like to know the reason. I think you can tell me that much, at least.”

Ouch.

“My parents…” I begin, my voice trembling until I steady it with a fortifying breath. “Grandmother has them. She said if I didn’t do exactly as she commanded without question, if I disobeyed or failed in my mission, she’d…”

I choke on the words, the breath catching in my throat as the horrific image of my parents’ lifeless bodies floods my mind’s eye. The thought of losing them too, of failing them as I failed Adam, is overwhelming. It clouds my vision until all I can see is their vacant stares, accusing me.

“Who is your grandmother?” Mrs. Graves asks, leaning forward. “Scarlett—listen to me.” I stop pacing again and turn to her. “Is she your grandmother involved in organized crime, or?—”

“No! No, she’s…she’s not my grandmother, she’s…” I suck in a breath, and then I find myself sharing…

Everything. Adam’s death. His funeral. The strange, veiled woman who offered me vengeance.

“And so you chose this path,” Mrs. Graves says at last. The gentle rebuke, stated with compassion, still stings like the lash of Grandmother’s whip. But she’s right, of course.

“I chose this,” I say dully.

And I’ve been so consumed by my single-minded pursuit that I lost sight of everything.

“It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” I murmur, sitting down all at once on the dusty floor. “I just…I just wanted justice for Adam.”

A heavy silence stretches between us. But finally, Mrs. Graves speaks again, her voice laced with bone-deep sorrow. “I know what it’s like to have an all-consuming rage claw at your soul, that desperate need to make someone pay for an unforgivable crime...” She trails off.

But I want to know more. “What...what happened?”

“When my daughter was taken from me by cruelty and violence...” Her voice fractures but she pushes on. “The rage, that driving need to inflict that same agony on her killer…it nearly destroyed me, Scarlett.”

“What did you do?”

“I hired two young girls with a reputation for enacting street justice.”

Hadria and Lyssa. “And…did they?”

It takes a moment for her to answer, a single nod of the head. I watch her, transfixed and suddenly, strangely, afraid, as she relives her past in her own mind.

“Did it help?” I whisper. “Getting that eye for an eye…did it help?”

She shakes her head, her lips curving in a rueful, heartbroken smile. “No, child. It didn’t. Lyssa asked me that recently, you know. And I—I lied to her. Told her I felt some measure of justice. But I didn’t. Because I didn’t want justice, did I? That wasn’t what I wanted and it wasn’t what I got.”

For the first time, I truly think about where this insatiable quest for vengeance will lead. Is this what Adam would have wanted for me? For me to sacrifice my humanity, to damn my own soul?

To kill, like he was killed?

I blink back the burn of tears clouding my vision as Mrs. Graves reaches across the divide and covers my hand with her palm. “I think you have a good heart beneath all that pain, Scarlett,” she murmurs, squeezing my hand. “Don’t let it consume you, like mine did.”

“You don’t understand,” I say miserably. “I don’t have a good heart. I—I’m the one who killed all your Syndicate members.”

She stares at me for a long time. Ashamed, I keep looking down.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” she says at last. I look up at last, find her somber and still. “Very sorry indeed.”

I open my mouth, desperate to respond, to find absolution. But this woman can’t give it to me, any more than killing my brother’s murderer could bring me peace. I see that now.

And I see, too, that I can’t take her to Grandmother. I’d be signing her death warrant. One more life on my hands. One more terrible deed. And I can’t bring myself to do it. So the only thing I can do is let her go, and try to free my parents myself.

I get up and walk a few paces away. “You need to go.”

She doesn’t move.

“Mrs. Graves, I’m not kidding. Go. Now. Please,” I add, when she still doesn’t move. “Why are you just sitting there? This isn’t a trick. I’ve changed my mind. I…”

She gets up and crosses to me and takes me by the shoulders. “You have done terrible things, Scarlett. But what about your parents—are they bad people?”

I stare at her in horror. “Of course not! They’re completely innocent. This is all my fault, they had nothing to do with it. They have no idea I’m…” I feel sick at the idea of them finding out what I’ve done, too.

“Then you need to do whatever you can to free them. Right now, that means taking me to this—this Grandmother.”

“I can’t take you to her,” I whisper, dragging in a ragged breath as fear wars with shame in my chest. “If I do, she’ll kill you.” The look of pity that crosses Mrs. Graves’ features surprises me.

“No, she won’t.”

“I can assure you, Mrs. Graves, she will.”

“We’ll have to agree to disagree. But either way, you must take me to the people you’re working for.”

I stare at her. “But…why?”

“Because I won’t be the cause of two innocent lives being taken. And I, Scarlett, no matter what you might think when you look at me, I am not an innocent in all this. I understand my girls all too well, and the business they run. So you will take me to this Grandmother, and we will hope that she keeps her word and releases your parents.”

My heart clenches at her selflessness. How can she be so willing to sacrifice herself for people she’s never met? For me, the person who has killed so many Syndicate members? “No. I can’t let you do that. She’ll kill you, and it will be my fault.”

She hugs me close, tight, before releasing me and fixing me with that same pitying look from before. “Scarlett, I’m very sorry for what you’ve been through. And I’m sorry for what’s coming, too.”

“What do you mean?”

Mrs. Graves looks at me with a deep sadness. “My girls will come for me, Scarlett. And when they do...”

She holds my gaze for a soul-searing moment, and I see she’s right. She’s no innocent, this woman. She’s brave and she’s honorable, but she’s done terrible, wicked things in her life, just like I have.

“When they come for me,” she says softly, “they will kill you. But before then, I think we should at least give your parents a fighting chance. What do you say?”