‘What is it?’ I asked.
She measured her words, starting out slowly like she was still unsure of whether to say anything at all. ‘I know you told me you don’t want to talk about that night yet. And I’ve tried to respect that. But I don’t see how I can keep this from you any longer …’
I sat up. ‘Keep what from me?’
‘The Falcone boys are downstairs. They’ve been here for a while, actually, but I knew you didn’t want any reminders of … of what happened …’ She trailed off, examining her shoes. ‘I wasn’t going to tell you, but I think you should know. They won’t go away. They don’t want to leave you unprotected … in case …’
In case he comes back for me.
Millie had thought me crazy for not telling the police about Jack and Donata. I had considered it, in my darkest moments, but I wanted two things that snitching couldn’t assure me: a fate worse than prison for them, and my own survival.
Millie looked uneasy. ‘Nic says he won’t leave until he sees you. Mrs Bailey has been swatting him with tea towels all week.’
All week.
I frowned at my duvet, zeroing in on the swirls. The pain had regressed to a dull thud in the base of my chest again. I hadn’t thought about Nic much since the fire, but there were things that needed to be said, and maybe it was time to deal with that. ‘Can you tell him to come up?’
Millie bounded into the hallway and down the stairs. ‘Nic?’ she called, and for the first time I registered the low timbre of a new voice and realized it had probably been there all along.
When Nic appeared in my doorway he was paler than I’d ever seen him. His hair was messy and his jawline was marked with the dark shadow of week-old stubble, making him seem much older. He had a bandage running the entire length of his arm and another wrapped around his hand.
He didn’t move to come inside, though I could tell by the quiet shuffling that he wanted to. What must I have seemed like to him? A wild animal waiting to pounce, or something wounded and caged?
He fiddled with the cross around his neck, pulling it up and down the chain so that it made a faint grinding noise in the silence.
‘How are you?’ The words rasped in his throat. The smoke had gotten him bad.
I spread my arms wide by way of explanation: I looked like I had been dragged through a field of manure backwards and then dressed in a dumpster by a blind person.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said softly. ‘I’m sorry she’s gone.’
Don’t think about her. I scrunched my thoughts down and looked at Nic instead. It was impossible not to think about the last time I had seen him. I remembered the dumpster-groove in the kitchen’s metal door, the way Nic’s eyes had flashed as he faced off with my uncle. Don’t think about Jack.
I had dragged Nic’s lifeless body away from the fire that destroyed my life … Don’t think about the fire. I had gone to help him instead of making sure my mother was safe. I should have checked, but I didn’t. I should have helped her first, but I didn’t. Don’t think about her. He had pulled me away from her white sneakers when I was almost close enough to touch them.
‘Sophie?’ Nic’s body was dipping across the threshold, his fingers digging into the doorframe.
‘What?’
He blinked, surprised by my bluntness. ‘I’m worried about you.’
Now that he was standing across from me, I realized I didn’t want to see him. All our memories were bad ones – I couldn’t remember the good ones, couldn’t pretend his kisses would make all the darkness go away. Everything was too clear now.
‘You don’t have to be a Marino any more,’ he said quietly. ‘Not if you don’t want to be.’
‘I was never a Marino,’ I shot back. ‘You know that.’
He looked away, sheepish. He had thought I lied to him all along – I could see it in his expression.
‘And I sure as hell am not a Marino now,’ I added, hearing the venom in my words.
‘Come back with me,’ he said. ‘We’ll avenge your mother together. We’ll kill them for everything they’ve taken from us. You’ll have your revenge, I promise.’
What a way to comfort someone in the depths of grief – to promise death and destruction – and yet I felt charged by it. This was Nic – there were things he could never give me, empathy he could never really feel, but this, this was his world and of all the promises he had ever made and unmade, I knew he would keep this one. And that brought its own set of complications, because as much as he would do this for me, deep down it would always truly be for him.