Fallen

Hurt spiraled through her and it took a moment to swallow down the lump in her throat. He turned before she could speak. “They’re not my rules. But I have to play by them if I have any hope of gathering the information I need, if there’s even any information to gather.”

Scarlett took a deep breath. She had to be reasonable about this. She had abandonment issues; she acknowledged them. But she couldn’t let her own self-doubt get in the way of the bigger picture. Camden had been honest with her when it could have cost him everything to do so. He’d trusted her not only with his secret, but with the secrets of two people he’d grown up with. Two people who craved the same justice he did. She chewed her lip for a moment. She wanted to help, but she also wanted to be clear about where she stood. Especially if it was going to mean pretending she didn’t know him in public.

“The woman whose house I saw you leaving that morning, you said she’s a good friend—”

“Georgia.” His back was still to her so she couldn’t see his face.

“Yes, Georgia.” She paused, considering her words and in the end just diving in. “She considers you hers.” She’d seen the look on her face both at the hardware store, and as he’d left her house the morning she’d driven by. She’d replayed it in her mind. Far too many times.

For a moment he was silent, still, but finally he nodded. He looked back over his shoulder and she saw the conflict in his expression. “Sometimes I think she’s right to, you know?”

Scarlett’s ribs tightened.

“It seems like . . .” His words faded away, as though he didn’t know how to finish that sentence.

“Like you owe her?” Scarlett asked. She tried to imagine what it must have been like for them, those three against the entire world, bonded in a way she probably couldn’t even imagine.

Camden let out a staggered breath. “I don’t know,” he finally said. “Someone does.” He paused for several moments. “We were told one of the reasons our mothers gave us up was because we were born damaged. Our mothers’ sin was passed along to us in the form of something physical.”

“Something physical?” She frowned.

“Georgia was born with a cleft palate. The man who became Georgia’s guardian paid for her surgery. Mason has heterochromia.”

“Those are signs of sin?”

“In Farrow they are.”

She shook her head, trying to wrap her mind around what he was telling her. This was all so unbelievable. So . . . outside anything she’d heard of before. Were there other places like Farrow? Towns still lost in time, operating under archaic, irrational beliefs like the ones that had fueled the Salem Witch Trials? Even laws? Did they really believe such things? Or were their physical abnormalities an easy excuse to treat them in any manner they pleased and in whatever way was convenient? “And you?” She’d seen every perfect strip of him. “What in the world is your sign of sin?”

“I don’t know. I never knew what mine was. I worried.” He paused. “I wondered if it was something they knew but never told me, some illness I couldn’t see or feel but that might one day show itself. I don’t know.” He scrubbed a hand down his face. “In any case, even beyond the disability, Georgia suffered the most, more than either of us, just by virtue of being female.” Something dark came into his eyes and Scarlett’s heart went out to him. And Georgia. She didn’t have to wonder what sort of treatment Georgia received from the members of the guild. From those who were accessories to the crimes taking place inside the walls of Lilith House. She understood why Camden was torn about his feelings for her. He didn’t want to hurt her more than she’d already been hurt.

She crawled forward, sitting on the edge of the bed next to him and turning his face to hers and saying very gently, “You can’t force yourself to feel something you don’t, any more than you can stop feeling the things you do. I had to accept that.” She turned her gaze from his momentarily. “It’s why I didn’t try to force Haddie’s father to be part of her life. Love by force or . . . obligation . . . guilt . . . is not love.”

He turned his face into her palm, kissing the hand that lay on his cheek. “I know,” he breathed.

“So try to stop feeling guilty for not loving her,” she said gently.

Camden raked a hand through his hair. “Dammit, I do love her, Scarlett. Just . . . not like that.” He whispered it like a confession. “The things I feel for you, the things I want . . . I could never feel them for her, no matter how hard I tried. It’s like . . . that fate you talked about. That pull. I feel it every time you’re in the room. I have since the moment I laid eyes on you.” He exhaled, taking her face in his hands and leaning his forehead on hers.