Fuck.
I feel for Justin.
I do, even after all this.
I had no idea he’d been so psycho obsessed with Jenna as a boy, but it makes sense now. After his ma up and left him by dying…Jenna Ford would’ve seemed like some untouchable goddess, enlisted in the Army, this strong soldier who’d go away on deployment but come back every time after walking through hell, returning unscathed.
Until she didn’t.
And I guess those reserves of grief inside Justin cracked.
Building his hatred over time as he kept looking for someone to blame. It must’ve fucking eaten him up to see Warren and me and the others getting all the credit for recent events when he hated Warren for surviving Jenna…
…and hated me for not being good enough, fast enough, to get his ma out of the Paradise Hotel in time.
Maybe he’s right to.
I’m only human.
Only one man.
And there just wasn’t enough time, enough resources, to get through all that chaos when no one knew what was going on, who was alive inside, who was dead. Nobody knew about the lab incinerating itself in the mountain nearby, causing the fire.
Maybe nobody could’ve saved Constance Bast that night.
That don’t mean he’s wrong for needing someone to hate.
Or for hating me.
But even if I hurt for him, even if I get why he’s gone off the deep end with a festering wound that never healed, I won’t let this crazy SOB do this.
I’ll kill him if I have to, or let him kill me if it puts a stop to this shit.
And I take another step closer, careful, wary.
“Andrea isn’t Jenna, man. You know that,” I say. I can’t get him too excited, but I gotta snap him out of this fantasy. “You can’t bring Jenna Ford back. None of us can. You’re just taking my little girl away from me. Is that what you want? To make me hurt the way I made you?”
“Yes!” Justin roars. “You deserve it! You deserve pain, and yet you still get everything! You get to have Andrea. You get to have Peace. You get to be Mr. Fucking Radio Man, fixing everybody’s problems when you aren’t talking about your stupid conspiracy shit and—”
“And a dead wife,” I growl. “A dead ma. A brother I can’t stand and don’t know how to talk to even though he’s trying his damnedest to get through to me.”
He stops, staring, a wild tear sliding down his cherry-red cheek.
“I know what it’s like to hurt, Justin. I know what it’s like to miss ’em. And you wanna be mad at someone for taking them away. But really, no matter what things were like when they were alive, whether they were good or bad people…you’re really mad at them for leaving you before you can set things right.”
It’s raw, how painfully true that is.
How long it’s taken me to figure it out.
Yeah, things were bad with me and Abby.
With me and Ma.
But I keep feeling the same thing.
Like they checked out before I had a chance to make things better.
Like they just left me with these scars while they got to run away, and maybe it doesn’t make sense, maybe it’s selfish, but we’re human. We get to be selfish when we’re hurting.
Fuck, I’m mad.
I’m furious at life, but as soon as I realized it, I didn’t go postal with a goddamn flamethrower.
I let it go.
And this calm rushes in to take its place.
A calm that tells me I can do this.
Somehow, I can talk Justin down. If I can just get through to him.
As I start to open my mouth again, that’s when I see her.
Peace.
She’s with Clark, creeping along the edges of the carnival grounds, using the flames and the stalls to mask their movements, ducking behind some of the tents set up all around. This is a hellscape, a mess of jumping sparks, just waiting for the right one to catch the wind and turn this into one of those forest fires it takes an entire statewide effort to stop.
But I know, the moment I see her, we’re gonna get through this. She stops, peering around from behind a tent, catching my eye.
I can’t be too obvious looking at her.
Can’t tip Justin off that she’s there.
But she mouths I’ve got this.
And I know Andrea’s gonna be fine.
Because she’s got Peace’s love to hold her through.
And so do I.
I just gotta keep Justin distracted and trust Peace to do her thing.
Even if it means letting him hurt me.
And I deliberately move within his reach, within range of the flamethrower, even as I keep my hands up.
He jerks the nozzle of the flamethrower up, taking aim at yours truly, his eyes narrowing. “Don’t you fucking think I won’t.”
“I know you will,” I say, locking my gaze on him as I drop my hands, bracing myself, ready to move. My thigh burns hotter than any flames around me, but I can’t fucking care right now.