One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five.
I stared across twenty feet of open space to the hanging paper target, examining the holes my bullets had made with a remote sense of satisfaction. Three years ago, I couldn’t hold a gun without shooting myself in the foot. Now, I had a license to carry concealed and you’d be hard pressed to find me without my tiny Smith & Wesson pocket pistol shoved into my purse or tucked somewhere else as I walked the streets of New York.
I sighed when I felt someone hovering in the space behind me and reached up to remove the hot-pink shooting muffs Conor had given me when I’d first started. He’d meant them as an embarrassing joke, but I loved them.
Pulling them down to dangle around my neck, I turned away from the target with my gun still resting comfortably in my palm and frowned at the stranger who was waiting to speak with me.
When I first came to the range with Conor, I’d been a twitchy, trembling rookie so green it had almost — not quite, but almost — made him smile. The first time I’d shown up without him, the men who’d been practicing here for years looked at me like an unwanted interloper who was more likely to shoot one of them in the head with a rogue bullet than she was to hit the target.
No one laughed when I walked through the doors anymore. Now, they looked at me with respect. A few of them even looked at me with more than respect, going so far as to ask me out to dinner or a drink after I’d finished for the day. I tried my best to be gentle as I let them down easy.
I’m not dating right now.
The lie was comfortable on my lips after using it for so long, and far easier than the truth. If I’d looked at them and said, I’ve got trust issues and a broken heart, so I’m never dating again. I plan to die an old spinster with seven thousand cats and a dried up, celibate uterus they never would’ve believed me. What sane, twenty-four year old New Yorker didn’t date?
Eternal Singleville…. Population: me.
My eyes scanned the guy who’d approached in a detached, cursory survey. Mid-twenties with handsome features and prominent muscles that attested to his many hours at the gym, he probably turned heads wherever he went. Before Budapest, I’d have been so flustered he was even looking at me, I probably would’ve passed out cold. At the very least, I’d have talked his ear off with a cringeworthy stream of unstoppable babble. But I was no longer that girl.
I raised my eyebrows coolly and waited for him to speak.
“Nice shots,” he said, flashing a mega-watt smile. “You must spend a lot of time here.”
“Yep,” I agreed, shrugging as I flipped on the safety, stowed my gun back in its holster, and shoved it inside my black duffel.
“Maybe we can practice together sometime?” he asked, hope plain in his voice. I couldn’t help but notice that his expression was already a little crestfallen — I think he saw the rejection in my eyes before I even opened my mouth.
“Sorry.” I slid the strap over my shoulder and brushed past him on my way to the exit. “I shoot alone.”
* * *
I love history.
Ancient times. Faraway lands.
I’ve spent hours hunched over history textbooks, pouring over facts and figures. Examining the different eras and periods.
See, historians… we like order. We divide things into B.C. and A.D. designations. We draw lines on a piece of paper and segment the past into chunks that make our own historical consumption easier.
The Stone Age.
The Middle Ages.
The Dark Age.
We like to know exactly when things changed. The precise moment one era ended and a new epoch began. As if any amount of organization could make the brutal history of our world easier to swallow.
If you’d charted my existence on a time line, there would be a bold red divider bisecting my life, with everything leading up to Budapest on one side and everything that came after on the other. If you were to look a little closer, you’d find the catalyst of change separating the two periods of Faith Morrissey was an infinitesimal instant of time — a single, sunny morning in Heroes’ Square when I’d fallen into the arms of a charming, crooked-grinned stranger.
My lifespan had two distinct eras, now.
B.W. and A.W.
Before Wes. After Wes.
And there wasn’t a damn thing I could do to erase that line or step back over it to my life before.
My family, my friends — hell, even my name — were all on the other side. Untouchable and unreachable.
As far as I was concerned, as far as the world was concerned…
Faith Morrissey was gone.
* * *
“Fae? Are you here?”
I broke eye contact with myself in the mirror and hastily grabbed my shirt off the bed as I listened to the slow, waddling footsteps that were making their way across my apartment. It should’ve surprised me that she was here this early on a Saturday morning, but my friend was anything but predictable these days.
“In my room!” I called through my closed bedroom door. “Give me a sec, I’m just throwing on some clothes.”
“Yeah… I’m not gonna make it that far. I’ll be on the couch.”
I smiled softly at her words.
Pulling the thin sweater down over my head, I hid the ugly scar that marred the upper left side of my stomach. Three years after surgery, it had faded from bumpy pink flesh into semi-smooth white skin, but it would never be entirely gone. I’d bear the mark of what had happened in Budapest for the rest of my life — a perfect physical manifestation of the invisible, intractable memories seared into my mind.
I set my shoulders, smoothed my dyed-dark hair into place, and swung open the door of my bedroom. As soon as my eyes caught sight of her, sitting on my couch with both hands on her very pregnant stomach and her swollen feet propped up on my coffee table, a giggle escaped my lips.
“Laugh all you want,” Lux grumbled unhappily. “Someday when the tables have turned and you’re the one who’s married and a thousand months pregnant, I will have no sympathy. We’ll see who’s laughing, then.”
“I see you’re in a good mood, this morning,” I said, ignoring the familiar pang of sadness that her words inspired and forcing a cheery tone. “This very early morning, I might add.”
It wasn’t quite seven.
“Bash made me waffles at four a.m.,” she said a little wistfully, an involuntary smile on her face as she spoke of her husband, Sebastian. “And then I couldn’t fall back asleep so I figured I’d come harass you instead.”
“Preggo my Eggo,” I teased, settling in next to her on the couch.
She stuck out her tongue at me.
It was actually pretty funny to see her in such foul spirits. Normally, Lux was a sunny blonde with an even sunnier personality — one that had shone all the brighter in the past year, since she’d married the love of her life and was now, and I quote, a thousand months pregnant with his baby. They were the perfect couple — both fair haired and fun, with big hearts and warm dispositions. They were also so obviously in love it almost hurt to look at them directly.
“I brought breakfast,” Lux said, nodding toward the coffee cup and white paper bag on my side table, both of which were emitting delicious smells I was convinced only the bakeries of Manhattan were capable of producing.
“Thanks,” I said, reaching out for the coffee. I felt the weight of Lux’s eyes on my face as I lifted the cup to my mouth and turned to look at her. She was watching the progress of my sip with sheer longing on her face — her eyes bright, her lips parted. When I swallowed the first scalding gulp, I thought she might start to cry.
“You okay over there?” I asked quizzically, once my tastebuds had recovered.
“Coffee,” she said weakly, her eyes still trained on my cup. “I miss coffee. So much.”
“Well, it won’t be too long, now. That bun’s just about ready to come out of the oven,” I joked, eyeing her stomach.
/> “Agh! Don’t say that. I’m not remotely prepared.”
“Oh, shut up. You’re going to be a great mom, and you know it. And Sebastian is practically tailor-made for fatherhood.” I smiled at her. “Baby Jamie is one lucky little fetus.”
“Ew, please don’t say fetus.”
“Sorry. How about zygote?” I teased. “Or embryo? Spawn? Seedling?”
“I will take those croissants and leave,” she warned. “Don’t test me. Yesterday, I ate an entire baguette in one sitting.”
I laughed.
For the next hour, I listened happily to her describe her disastrous attempts to paint the nursery a unisex color. Apparently, saffron orange looked way better in curry than it did on the walls. Small talk with Lux should’ve been boring, but it wasn’t. For a long time, even after I’d left everything behind and moved across the country, I’d thought I would never have this again.
Friendship.
When Lux and I met two years ago, I’d been alone. I hadn’t had a friend since Margot, and I’d barely known how to get myself to work in the morning, let alone strike up conversation with the stranger in the cubicle next to mine. How could I be a friend to someone when I barely knew myself?
Because I couldn’t be Faith Morrissey anymore. I refused to be that stupid girl who’d been lied to. Deceived and duped by a man with a charming, crooked smile and a few pretty words. That girl…
She was gullible. Naive. Foolish to believe, even for a minute, that things were real with him.
Men like Wes Adams simply didn’t fall for women who were scared of their own shadow. Whirlwind romances and fairytale happily-ever-afters were nothing more than Hollywood fabrications. And sad, silly girls who could no longer recognize themselves in the mirror weren’t worth anyone’s time.
I’d needed a clean slate. A fresh start. A new name and a new city, where no one would know me or my story.
And, more importantly, where no one could ever find me.
Where he could never find me.
New York had been perfect, for that. With Conor’s help, I’d gotten my new life. I’d just never anticipated that this existence would allow for things like friends or laughter. Nor had I realized that, even with the constant, throbbing pain of a broken, betrayed heart in my chest, I would be able to find happiness again.
My capacity for romantic love was gone — that was an unchangeable fact.
But my love for the rest of it — for best friends and buttery croissants, for fashion and fine bottles of wine — was very much intact.
Being heartbroken doesn’t mean you stop feeling. Just the opposite — it means you feel it all more. With your heart in fragments, every sensation is sharper, every emotion more acute. Your feelings are enhanced, like a blind man with an impeccable sense of smell, or a deaf woman whose eyes can perceive things a normal person would never recognize.
The brokenhearted are the best empaths of all.
I wasn’t numb or desensitized to the world. I experienced everything with the keen sharpness of a blade — the pain, the betrayal, the loss, the lies. The light, the love, the hope, the fear.
My heart wasn’t dead — but Faith Morrissey was.
I was Fae Montgomery, now.
And the greatest surprise of all was that despite the pain of leaving my family and everything I’d ever known behind….
I kind of liked being her.
Chapter 39
Weston
GHOST STORY
* * *
She’d always said it wasn’t a fairy tale.
She’d been right. It was a ghost story.
There was a once a beautiful little girl, who stumbled upon a vicious wolf in the woods. She ignored his sharp teeth and dirty pelt. Her eyes didn’t linger on the bloodstained fur or pile of bones scattered around him. His deepest growl and most menacing glare didn’t send her running.
She only saw how dark the woods were, how lonely the wolf was — alone with only the shadows for company.
She didn’t run away, as everyone who’d come before her had done.
She pulled him out. Tugged on his paws and claws until he’d left the wild behind.
She knew a wolf could never become a pet dog. He was feral, ferocious.
She didn’t seem to mind.
She claimed him as her own, bound him inside the cage of her heart.
She loved the savage creature and tried to teach him how to exist outside the isolation of the forest.
She didn’t see that living in the wilderness wasn’t what made him wild.
The wild was inside him.
So, though the girl wrapped him tight in her embrace, though she bathed him in the warm glow of her soul…
He couldn’t help himself. It was in his nature, in the marrow of his bones, in his very blood.
There was no redemption, for a wolf.
Eventually, as he’d always known he would, he turned on the girl who’d been his salvation.
He killed her.
She became a ghost.
And he went back to the dark.
Chapter 40
Faith
CUTTING TIES
* * *
I was careful.
I hadn’t seen my parents in more than three years. I hadn’t been home for a visit or spoken to my siblings on the phone. I didn’t check my old email addresses or call my former voicemail boxes.
I tried not to think about California, as I settled into the chilly climate of the northeast. I learned to dress in layers and finally understood the value of a quality pair of waterproof winter boots when the first snows turned to grimy grey slush on city streets. I forgot about kale and kombucha as I learned to like greasy Chinese takeout and massive late-night pieces of New York pizza.
I walked faster, talked faster. Dressed better.
I was a new person, with no ties to my old life…. with one, tiny exception.
Margot.
See, my old roommate wasn’t exactly easy to shake. And, as she was the only person in my life who’d been fed the same bullshit “declassified” government debriefing after Budapest, she knew exactly why I’d had to start over. Why I’d run.
So I did something that broke all my new rules: I opened a P.O. Box and let her send me letters.
She was the one tie from my past I couldn’t quite sever. Maybe it was reckless, but it wasn’t like we were daily pen pals. We’d exchanged a handful of notes over the past three years, mostly when holidays and special occasions rolled around. Often, Margot sent me postcards with no return address, covered in all manner of stamps and seals from her travels across the globe. I’d grin as I read about the Croatian caves she’d spent her Christmas exploring or the sweltering Belizean jungles she’d spent her birthday trekking through. Sometimes, when she settled in one place for long enough, I’d write back and tell her about my new life in New York — but those times were few and far between.
That was the only reason I didn’t worry when three months passed without a note from her.
Then six months.
Then eight months.
The last message I’d received was a homemade Thanksgiving card in the shape of a handprint-turkey, its lopsided envelope bearing an Australian postage stamp. She’d enclosed a picture of herself posing by the Opera House with her blonde pixie cut blowing in the wind and her hands thrown up in the air. She’d sounded happy in her note — she’d loved Sydney and hoped to stay for a few months. She’d promised to write more often.
But then… nothing.
The card I sent at Christmas to her last known address went unanswered. There was no colorful birthday card in my mailbox in August when I turned twenty-four. And this week, it was Thanksgiving again — marking a full year without so much as a word from her.
I reassured myself that she’d gotten restless in one place and set out on a new adventure. She was probably just busy traveling. Maybe she was somewhere remote, like the Sahara desert, where there were no convenient post offices. Maybe
she was spending the year at sea, sailing from port to port with no time to disembark and scribe me a few cheery words.
No matter what I told myself, the pit of anxiety burning its way through my stomach lining didn’t go away. I was so concerned about my friend, I’d even called her landlord in Sydney and left a message, hoping he’d know something — anything — that might ease my paranoid thoughts. I’d probably develop an ulcer from the endless worry, by the time I heard back from him.
Unfortunately for me, Margot was the least of my worries. My troubles were only just beginning.
And the careful new life I’d begun to construct in New York was about to implode.
* * *
Swiftly descending the steps of my apartment building, I hit the street and edged into the busy flow of pedestrian traffic rushing toward the nearest subway platform. I made it a few feet before I noticed the nondescript black sedan, its windows tinted too dark to see through, parked directly in front of my walk-up. With a reluctant, resigned sigh, I cut across the steady stream of walkers and reached for the passenger door handle. I wasn’t surprised to find it unlocked.
The chill of the early winter day was chased away as soon as I slipped inside the warm car.
“What do you want?” I asked without preamble. I hadn’t seen him for a few months and we weren’t exactly what you’d call friends. More like grudging acquaintances united by an inescapable past. So there was no point in beating around the bush — if he was here, something was wrong and I wanted to know about it.
“Nice to see you too, Montgomery.”
I rolled my eyes. “Can’t say the same, Gallagher.”
Conor. Fucking. Gallagher.
A twenty-six year old dead sexy Gemini with a killer smile, ice-blue eyes, and a surly disposition that made all that hotness a moot point. The most curmudgeonly city cabbie looked like a cute, cuddly golden retriever puppy next to Conor. He was pathologically unpleasant.
Love & Lies Page 67
