“Finnley, I apologize for what happened to Veronica. It was not a smart decision, and it won’t happen again. This I promise you. I assure you that when the mayor demands her presence a second time, you and Ezra will both be there by her side to protect her from further harm. In the meantime, Veronica, we need to figure out what to do about your sister.”
I cringed at the words, and took a deep breath. “I think I might know where to find her.”
“Andrew’s place,” Finn suggested, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “She needs a place to live, and that one probably got left to her or something.”
I shook my head. “No. I mean, she’s probably holed up there, but I think I know where she’s at right now.” Taking a deep breath, I raised my eyes to meet Marcel’s. “I think she’ll be at my mother’s grave.”
Marcel’s eyebrows lifted nearly into his hairline. “Really?” he asked, surprised. “What makes you think she’d be there?”
“This whole display of her power was to get our attention, right? Now she’ll want to meet since we’ve found out the truth. She wants to cause me as much pain as possible, and meeting at my mother’s grave would do that. She knows she’s dead, and she knows where she’s buried. I think that’s where she’ll be waiting for me, and I want to meet with her.”
“Ronnie–”
“Finn, I’ll be alright.” Looking at the Council, I continued. “I need to do this. I need to meet with her face to face, now that I know her true identity. Please let me do this.”
“Take Finnley and Ezra with you as protection,” Marcel said firmly. “Try to talk her out of her plans for revenge. If you can’t, be ready for a fight. You may be the only one that can talk some sense into her. Unfortunately, you’re also the person she hates the most right now, so it’ll be dangerous. Be careful, Veronica.”
I nodded my head, feeling oddly numb inside at his words. For the first time in years, I wasn’t alone. I had a little sister in the world, and she wanted nothing more than to kill me to avenge our father’s death. There was a mixture of emotions inside of me, all clamoring to be understood first. Anger, sadness, confusion, hopelessness, and a deep sense of foreboding, all at the thought of visiting my mother’s grave for the first time in more than a year and meeting my sister.
“We’ll be careful,” I said, looking over at Finn. “Let’s do this.”
Chapter Eight
The cemetery was empty of any visitors, for which I was incredibly grateful. I didn’t want anyone here to witness my first encounter with Tabitha since her identity had been revealed. There were so many questions inside my head that I could barely keep track of them all, and I knew that if anyone were here to watch me, I would possibly lose my nerve.
What will happen when she sees me? Will she pretend to be that girl I had breakfast with? Will she beg me to understand and join her in her quest for revenge? What if she just attacks me without warning? Will Ezra and Finn be able to protect me? Can I hurt Tabitha if it came down to it?
“Ronnie.” Finn’s low voice startled me, and I looked back to see him pointing off into the distance. Straining my eyes, I could just barely make out a figure hidden in the shadows of a large willow tree. Small hands parted the grassy tendrils, and Tabitha looked out at me from the darkness, eyes flashing with anger and hatred.
She’ll be easier to deal with if she’s not pretending to be my friend anymore…
I signaled for Finn and Ezra to hang back a bit so I could talk to Tabitha alone. Finn didn’t look happy at letting me go by myself, but he was well within earshot, and could probably get to us in seconds if she attacked. With the two of them to act as bodyguards, I was as safe as I could possibly be at the moment.
For a minute, Tabitha and I just stared at each other. I looked for any trace of the young girl I’d started getting to know. The soft, caring eyes I’d come to look forward to seeing were replaced by cold, unsympathetic eyes that didn’t look like they’d ever held a trace of warmth in them. Her normally sweet smile was gone, and in its place was a hard sneer that sent shivers down my spine. This girl was quite possibly as crazy as our father, and I hadn’t seen it.
What does that mean for you, if half of your family is nuts? Are you psychotic too? I pushed those thoughts back. I didn’t have time to think about stuff like that now; I had more pressing matters to attend to at the moment.
“Hello, Tabitha.”
She smiled finally, but it looked like a cruel mockery of the last time I’d seen her. “Hello, Ronnie.” She said my name with more disgust than I’d ever heard before. “I knew you’d figure out where to meet me if you thought hard enough. How are we feeling at the moment?”
“Confused, mostly,” I said, aiming to be as honest with her as possible. Niceness might knock her off balance and she might slip up. “When I saw the footage of you in the cemetery, I was devastated that someone I was beginning to consider a friend could be behind all of this.”
Tabitha chuckled. “Lovely, isn’t it? What I told you earlier was the truth, even if it hadn’t happened yet. These pitiful fools are rioting in the streets, all around the world. Buildings burn, shops are being looted, and people are fighting with one another over meager supplies. They’re all preparing for the upcoming zombie apocalypse.”
“The apocalypse won’t happen,” I said firmly, with just a bit of a threat to it. “I won’t let it.”
Tabitha shook her head. “You can’t stop me, Ronnie. But, you can join me. Together, the two of us could rule this entire world. You’ve certainly got the power for it. You could be a huge asset to my plans. Don’t ya think?” Her eyes looked so hopeful and happy that it actually made my gut twist painfully.
She wants me to join her. She’s not joking. She wants the two of us to rule together. I’ll bet she’s so lonely since our father died…
I shook my head sadly. “Tabitha, Andrew had the same plans as you, and I was against him. I have to be against you as well. It’s what’s right. You just can’t do this to people.”
Her eyes hardened again. “You murdered our father,” she said so quietly I almost didn’t hear her. “You owe me!” she screamed suddenly. “You owe me, and you owe him! If it weren’t for you, he’d still be here, and I’d still have someone that cared about me!”
At that moment, I was painfully aware that she was just a young girl. Barely fourteen years old, and already on her own in the world. Who did she have other than Andrew? Her mother and father were gone, and she was an only child…except for me. I was all she had left, and we were on opposite sides of this conflict.
“Tabitha, I care about you. You’re my baby sister.”
“You don’t know me,” she said with a sneer. “You don’t know me, and you certainly don’t care about me.”
“That’s not true. Tabitha, I’ve been alone for years. I was living in foster care, wishing every night that my mother could just come back to me and take me away from everything. Do you know what happens to kids in foster care?”
She sighed softly, finally looking like the girl I’d gotten to know, and my heart beat a little faster. Maybe I could get through to her after all! “Of course I know what happens to children that are placed in foster care. Everyone does. It sucks.”
I nodded my head. “I was starved of food when I misbehaved. Once, when I was about eleven, I found out that one of the older boys had been spying on me in the shower. Do you know what that feels like? I was so terrified, and I didn’t know what to do. When I finally worked up the courage to tell someone, do you know what they did to me? They moved me into another home that was just as bad as the one I came from. When I got placed with Alan and Susan Fredrickson–my last foster parents–it was a blessing, even if I didn’t realize it until much later.”
Surprisingly, thinking about Alan had me feeling a little homesick. I actually missed them. I missed Alan, Jessica, and even Susan. I had a home with them, and I never realized it until now, when they were probably gone from my life for g
ood and I would never see or speak to them again.
“I’m sorry you were put into foster care,” Tabitha said. Her eyes narrowed and she smiled, reminding me of a cat before it went in for the kill. “But you can get revenge on all those people. You could track them down and make them suffer until they beg for mercy. You could get your revenge after you help me get mine.”
“Tabitha, getting revenge is wrong. It won’t help you move on. Trust me. All it will do is make you feel worse. You’ll scare yourself.”
Tabitha snorted. “For being seventeen years old and surviving foster care after the death of your mother, you sure don’t understand how the world really works, Ronnie. The weak get taken and the strong survive to fight another day. When we met, I thought for sure you would be strong, but I was wrong. You’re weak, disgustingly so. I don’t understand how someone as pathetic as you managed to get the upper hand in a fight with our daddy.”
The use of the word daddy was like a red-hot knife burrowing in my heart, and I bit my lip. She obviously missed Andrew, and I couldn’t blame her. He was her father, and she had probably never seen the psychotic world-dominating side. She’d probably only seen a man that provided and cared for her, like any father should. And I’d taken that away from her.
Tabitha’s eyes focused on something over my shoulder, and she frowned. “You shouldn’t have brought that mutt to our meeting. This should have been just between the two of us. As sisters. Or were you too scared to face me alone?”
I shook my head. “I wasn’t scared, Tabitha. The Council ordered it.”
She nodded. “Ah, I thought that might be it. Would this be the same Council that ordered our daddy’s death? Or did that order come from one of the ones higher up?”
“They didn’t order Andrew’s death. I gave him every opportunity to surrender and give up his plans for world domination, but he refused.”
“So you murdered him,” she said flatly.
“I gave him every chance to walk away, but he refused, Tabitha. His death is not on me. He chose to hurt me, so his death is on him and the choices he made.”
“I don’t believe that,” she hissed, eyes blazing in defiance. “He would never have hurt you. You were his daughter.”
“How did you even know about me? Andrew didn’t find out until the day he died.”
“Word travels in the supernatural community. Everyone knew about the little necromancer that was brought back to life, who killed her father, and saved the whole community,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Nobody knows the real story, though. If they did, they wouldn’t make him into the bad guy.”
“Tabitha–”
“No!” she shouted, startling me. “I won’t listen to anything bad you have to say about him! He was a good man, Ronnie. He loved me, and he loved you, and you don’t even care that you murdered him!”
“Of course I care!” I screamed at her. My eyes burned, and I was dangerously close to bursting into tears. “He was my father and I killed him!”
She looked so startled that she actually took a step back in amazement. “You called him father. You always call him Andrew. I just thought–”
“What, that I didn’t care? That I could just murder a part of my family and not be affected by it? I’m not like that, Tabitha. Andrew was a horrible man, but he was still my father, and I would have liked the chance to get to know him. I would have liked to get to know you, as well. You’re my sister, my family. Tabitha, you’re not the only one that’s alone and scared. I lost my mother years ago, and the man I thought was my father walked out on me. I felt abandoned and lost.
“Even though I knew what kind of monster Andrew was, I was so happy when I found out about you. I realized that I didn’t have to be alone.” I sniffed and rubbed my face with the back of my hand, wiping the tears away. I took a deep, shaky breath before continuing. “Tabitha, if you leave with me right now, we can start over. We can be a family. It’ll be a small family, but we can support each other through life. Just try,” I said, pouring my heart out to her in this moment.
I was begging her to do the right thing, and I wasn’t sure if I could handle her refusing. If she told me no right now, I was sure my heart would break. Tabitha was crying as hard as I was, and I hoped she felt the same way. She wiped her face, and I waited patiently for her to make her decision. I knew I couldn’t rush her, or she could be lost to me forever.
She sighed. “Ronnie, you’re my big sister, even if I didn’t know about you until recently. You and I will always have a connection, no matter what happens. You know, deep down, I always kind of felt like some part of me was missing, and I think that part was you. I always wanted a sister to play with, to watch over me, to help me understand my gift…”
“I know. I felt the same way. Growing up alone is hard, and I would have given anything to have you in my life. We can still have that,” I said gently. “It’s not too late for us.”
“Yes, it is. It’s too late for us because you sided with the Council that murdered our father. I can’t forgive that, no matter how much I want to.”
“Tabitha, no–”
“I’m going to make the Council pay for what they’ve done. Either join me, or stay out of my way. I’d hate for you to get hurt just because you were in the wrong place at the wrong time.” She was crying still, and she looked as lost as I felt. When she spoke again, her voice caught, and she sounded like the child she was. “If you can’t help me avenge our father, I want nothing to do with you. Just make sure you get the hell out of my way.” She closed her eyes as the tears came faster, and her hand went to her stomach, like she was actually in pain.
“Tabitha–”
Her eyes snapped open and she glared at me. “Get the hell away from me!” she screamed. “I want nothing to do with you, you bitch!” She turned on her heels and fled, leaving me to stand alone in the shade of the willow tree. I watched her vanish through blurry eyes, and I wrapped my arms around my stomach, trying to hold the pain in.
How was it possible to miss someone so much? I didn’t even know the real Tabitha, but her absence felt like a hole in my heart. She was angry and hell bent on revenge, but she was still my baby sister, and it was still my job to protect her from any harm. How could I do that if she refused to let me in?
A hand gently rubbed my back, and I looked up into Finn’s pale blue eyes. His arm wrapped around my waist, and he pulled me into a gentle hug that would have surprised me if I didn’t know how Finn felt about me. Even though I still wasn’t sure what to do about my feelings for Finn, I wrapped my arms around him and buried my face in his chest so he wouldn’t see me cry more than he already had. His hand rubbed soothing circles across my back, and I felt the tears slowly begin to stop.
“Are you gonna be alright?” Ezra asked softly.
I pulled just far enough away from Finn to spot Ezra. He was hanging back a bit, trying to look like he wasn’t intruding on some private, intimate moment between two of his friends. I offered him a small smile and nodded. “I’ll be alright, Ezra. Don’t worry about me.”
“Hard not to worry when such awful things keep happening to my friend.” He ran a hand nervously through his short red hair. “Guys, I think we should get out of here. The middle of the cemetery probably isn’t a good place to hang around at the moment. If people are really panicking the way everyone says they are, we might get mobbed if we’re noticed. People do stupid things when they’re scared.”
The three of us walked back to the car that was waiting for us, and Finn slid into the driver’s seat, while Ezra took the back, leaving the passenger’s seat for me. He winked when I caught his eye, and I felt my face start to heat up just a bit. I hoped Finn would be too busy driving to notice.
*****
Finn walked silently beside me, and I tried not to let it unnerve me too much. Each of his movements was quiet and would go unnoticed no matter where he was. His boots barely made a sound as he walked down the empty hallway, while my sneakers squeaked annoyingl
y with each step. Every time the squeak came, both Finn and I would flinch.
Finally, he looked at me and frowned. “Do your shoes always do that?”
“Only when they’re wet, and it was damp in the cemetery. It’ll stop in a little bit.”
“Well, can you make them a little quieter, perhaps? That’s really annoying.”
“It annoys me too, Finn, but I can’t just magically make them stop. Tanya’s the one with magic, not me.” The silence that stretched between the two of us felt suffocating, and I silently begged him to say something else, just so I wouldn’t be left alone with my thoughts and the random annoying squeak of my sneakers.
“How are you feeling?” he asked quietly. “I mean, I know what happened between you and Tabitha was bad, but you won’t let it get to you, right? Ronnie, she’s not your baby sister. She’s evil, and she’s planning to destroy this place, along with everyone here. We can’t let that happen, and we can’t afford to let you go around thinking she can be saved.”
Even though his words were soft and understanding, they really pissed me off, and I couldn’t explain why. “Finn, I’m all that she has left in this world. She sees my refusal to join her as abandonment,” I said quietly, begging him to understand the way I was feeling at the moment.
He snorted, completely blowing off my revelation. “How can you possibly know that? She’s just playing head games with you, Ronnie, and you’re letting her. Don’t let her under your skin; it’ll just make this harder for you in the end.”
“I know that’s what she feels, because that’s how I’d feel if I were in her place. I’d feel lonely, and scared, and abandoned, and I don’t appreciate you laughing off my thoughts since you had to hear how hard it was for me to face her!” I turned away from Finn, too angry to even consider hearing his reply.
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