Remi
Three days had passed since the funeral, and I wasn’t even close to getting over it. And while there were tears still falling out of my eyes, Kamon’s hunters were having a party in the kitchen. I listened to them toast to Kamon and to the war they planned to start with Lydia Shaw. I stayed in my room because they weren’t talking about what I cared about. Killing Christine.
“Remi!” Carter yelled. “Join us.”
I ignored him, and that made him bang on my door like an idiot. “It’s open, Carter.”
“Stop being lame,” he said. He opened the door, and my jaw dropped.
“You look ridiculous,” I said. “What are you wearing?”
“Armani.” He brushed his sleeves and smiled at me. Carter was more likely to wear a bedazzled Armani t-shirt before wearing an Armani suit. I didn’t know what to say. “Come have a drink with me.”
“Yeah, right. You know your dad would freak…”
Kamon died all over again in my head, and I covered my mouth to stop myself from screaming. How had I forgotten that he was gone just that fast? “I’ll give you some privacy,” he said. “I have some things to do. I’ll see you later on tonight.”
I stayed in bed for a few minutes after he left, but I became too angry to lounge around. And too worried that things wouldn’t work out. Despite Carter being the strongest of the copies, I couldn’t stop thinking that the fate of my revenge was resting in the hands of a guy who took selfies in the mirror every morning.
The vain, unfocused side of Carter scared me. Even the side of him that reminded me of his father worried me. Kamon hadn’t captured Christine either.
Her personal witch and those freakishly strong powers inside of her head had made life hard for us. We knew now that we had to ambush her, or get her to come to us, and drug her to keep her down. She had to be surprised, or else you’d find yourself down and beaten, like the nine of us were now. So Carter planned to surprise her with something, and he’d promised to bring her to me and let me do the rest.
I sat on the floor of my new room. Carter had purchased this house to keep us out of hotels and out of the public eye. I laid out some of Kamon’s weapons from his collection in a circle around me.
I had six freshly sharpened knives and one nine-caliber pistol. Hunters used their minds as weapons, but sometimes, they needed help. Kamon and Carter had taught me how to use all of these things in fun lessons like: how to slit a throat, and how to fire a gun faster than your opponent can stop the bullets. Or fast enough to end Christine while she hesitated to kill me.
That was what Kamon and Carter had seen. She wouldn’t want to hurt me.
Remi, come with us!
I remembered her voice calling out to me in the chapel. She’d shown a soft spot in her heart for me, for no reason at all since I barely knew her, and that soft spot was going to get her killed.
I’d never killed anyone before trying to kill her, and honestly, my attempt was a blur. I remembered going there, grabbing her, and washing my hands after. I couldn’t get them clean enough.
Could I do that again? Could I attack someone who I knew didn’t hate me nearly as much as I hated her? Could I kill her?
I took Kamon’s gun to the window. I opened the curtains and let in the annoyingly serene view. If someone were to paint it, the piece would’ve been called Autumn in Japan.
Bright orange and red leaves hung over curled rooftops, and they colored the grass all over our insanely large Japanese property. A manmade creek flowed just outside of my window and marked a winding path through the neatly trimmed lawn. It stretched as far as my eyes could see, even past a stone bridge that led to the other house that we owned. I wasn’t allowed to go inside of it. Carter’s friends who’d sold him the house hadn’t had time to move out of there yet.
I waited until the most fragile looking bird flew close to my window. It reminded me of how frail Christine had looked when we’d first met. For all I knew, she could’ve still been that weak girl on the inside, despite what it looked like on the outside.
Could I kill someone like that? Someone weak who probably had to force herself to do brave things?
I shot the bird, and it floated gracefully to the ground. Then I shot it again, because one death didn’t seem like enough for Christine.