I’d shown her my tattoo, so she knew I wasn’t just a poser. Books were my friends, my allies, my voice. They were my weapon of choice in the war which I survived.
I got the job.
It felt good being employed again. And it felt even better to have gotten the job completely on my own. Darren had left me enough money to sustain myself and the next twenty generations, but I wasn’t going to touch a dime of it. I fantasized about donating it to women’s shelters and other good causes, but in practice, I was too sick to my stomach to think about it yet.
After I got hired, I went to Mrs. Belfort’s to say goodbye. She was boarding a plane the same afternoon with Kacey. Ryan was staying in town to deal with the paperwork. We hugged, and cried, and I wondered what had taken me so long to take the initiative and help her. Help myself. But it was always there, plain and simple.
I wasn’t alive before Bane came along.
Now I was present. I was feeling. My heart was an animal, caged and suppressed and angry. It was hungry. Restless. Out for blood. And I was going to feed it, because new Jesse died. Her quiet, submissive corpse was left on the cool sand of the beach the evening I’d had the flashback.
I realized that I wasn’t old Jesse just then. I was an even newer version, a stronger version, a version that was not to be messed with. She would make everyone pay. Everyone.
After visiting Mrs. B, the last thing I did while in El Dorado was knock on Wren’s door. Her parents lived in a James Bond-esque compound on a hilltop. I knocked on her door and sported my best innocent smile. She answered, immediately scrunching her nose up in distaste when I came into view. She was wearing a sports bra and yoga pants. A Cardi B song was blasting from the home entertainment system behind her.
“What do you want?” She put her hands on her hips, looking down.
Last time I’d seen Wren, Bane had nearly killed her friends. The less than enthusiastic greeting wasn’t surprising.
“To apologize,” I said and batted my eyelashes, laying it on thicker than her makeup. “About the night at the track. I guess you’ve heard about my dad…” I referred to Darren as my dad, even though the only title he had truly earned in his life was that of a cunning rapist. But I had a plan.
Wren’s eyes skimmed the length of me, her eyebrows finally relaxing, a look of sympathy washing over her expression.
“Yeah. I heard. Sorry.” Her shoulders slacked.
“It’s okay. It’s been pretty crazy lately. I guess what I wanted to say was that I’m sorry about what happened with you, Henry, and Nolan. I overreacted.” Each word was like a knife in my mouth.
Wren flipped her long, blonde ponytail and rolled her eyes. “It happens.”
“And I also wanted to give you this. I know that it’s your twentieth birthday in a second.” I handed her a wrapped gift. It was nothing special. The same strong, flowery, nauseating perfume I remembered she liked from when we used to go to school together. The next part was tricky, but I knew I could pull it off.
“Aw, thank you.” She took the gift, but still didn’t invite me in. “Yeah, I mean, it’s kind of a big deal.”
“Think about it. You’re entering your twenties. That’s huge.” I leaned my hip against her doorframe, engaging her in an easy chitchat. We used to do this a lot, Wren and I, back when I’d dated Emery. I’d never really felt the connection with her, but I’d tried hard for my boyfriend. Emery only ever hung out with the popular kids, and Wren had been the perfect queen bee everyone loved to secretly hate.
“Oh. I should do something, shouldn’t I?”
I widened my eyes. “You mean, you don’t even have a party planned? Wren, it’s the middle of the summer! Everyone is on a break. You have to do something.”
She munched on her lip. “I’m going to a community college in San Diego. Everyone there is meh. All our friends are in real colleges.”
Your friends, not mine.
“Invite them over, then.” I did a half-shrug. My heart beat so fast, I was afraid it’d crack. I wanted to lure them back into town, but knew that they weren’t stupid. What they were was smug, and I was counting on them seeing me as helpless and vulnerable. Being newly orphaned worked in my favor.
Wren tapped her chin, her acrylic, candy-apple red fingernails sparkling under the sun. “They said they were going to hang out in New York this summer.”
“Aw, New York.” I rolled my eyes, acting like them. Like her. “Home is the best place to be during summer vacation. Especially when it includes Tobago Beach and your family and friends.”