His voice trailed off, and his green eyes clouded over, lost in his memories, just like I was.
"But why keep me in the dark about Bria for all these years?" I asked. "Why even take me in? Why train me to be an assassin? You could have just shipped me off to Savannah to live with Bria and her foster family. That would have been the easiest thing for you to do. The simplest thing, for everyone."
"Maybe I could have, maybe I should have," Fletcher murmured. "I thought about it when you first came here."
"So what changed your mind?"
He looked down at the pages of his book, and for a moment, I thought that he wouldn't answer me. But he finally raised his gaze to mine once more.
"Do you remember the night that Douglas, that giant, came to the Pork Pit? He was one of Mab's men, one of those searching for me. He spotted me while I was out scouting another job, and he followed me back here to kill me. Do you remember that, Gin?"
Oh, I remembered, probably better than Fletcher did, because Douglas was the first person I'd killed inside the Pork Pit. I'd taunted the giant, lured him over to me, and then I'd stabbed him to death with the knife I'd been using to chop onions. The first time I'd ever used a blade that way-the first of many.
"When you killed Douglas, I realized how I could make things up to you, for your family being gone. I realized that I could train you to be an assassin, to survive. Even back then, you had that same cold, iron will you do now," Fletcher said. "I'd heard about Magda's prophecy, so I knew why Mab had wanted you and your sisters dead, because supposedly one of you would grow up to kill her. And I thought that maybe-that maybe this was what the prophecy was all about in the first place. That maybe you were meant to be with me, instead of with Bria. At first, anyway. Until you grew up. Until I could train you. Besides, by that point, I just loved you too damn much to let you go."
We fell silent. I thought back to what I'd said to Mab, when I'd asked her if she thought that she'd brought all this on herself.
"It's all very Greek, isn't it?" I quipped. "Prophecies, tragedies, destinies. Just like in all those old mythology books we read over the years."
Fletcher shrugged. "Hard to beat the classics."
I nodded. "And what about all that talk of my retirement right before you... died?"
Fletcher shrugged again. "Being an assassin is all well and good, but I wanted you to start thinking about other things, to realize that there was more to life than killing people, no matter how good you are at it. I'd taught you how to survive. I guess I wanted to put you on a happier path before I died."
"The one that led me to Bria," I finished.
He nodded. We didn't speak. Outside the snow continued to fall, coating everything in its cold, wet embrace.
"So what now?" I finally asked. "Because Mab's dead. I made sure of that. And if I'm not already, then I'm probably on my way to join her-and you."
The old man snorted. "What now? That's up to you, Gin. Just like it always has been."
"So I can go back then? Back to being... alive? Or whatever?"
The old man stared at me with his bright green eyes. "You're Gin Blanco, Genevieve Snow, and the Spider all rolled into one. You can do whatever you want to, sweetheart."
I bit my lip and looked away. "I don't want to lose you again, Fletcher. I don't want to leave you behind. Especially since it's my fault that you died in the first place. My fault that Alexis James tortured you to death."
A hundred agonizing emotions tightened my throat, but for once, I forced out the words. "I-I failed you that night."
"And I failed you when I didn't stop Mab from killing your mother and older sister," the old man snapped right back at me. "We all make mistakes, Gin, even the best of us. I like to think that it all evens out in the end. Remember that, and you'll be fine."
"But what should I do?"
"I can't tell you that," Fletcher said. "But it seems to me like there are a lot of people out there who care about you. It would be a shame to up and die on them, especially when they're working so hard to try to save your life."
I thought about everything that I'd gone through in the last few months. Grieving over Fletcher's death, my messy affair with Donovan Caine, taking on bad guy after bad guy, finding Bria, connecting with her, and now with Owen too, and all the things I felt for him. Fletcher was right. I'd worked too damn hard to get through all of that, to build a real life for myself, to give it up now.
Still, I got to my feet with a heavy heart. I should have headed for the door, but I lingered at the counter. I breathed in, and the old man's scent filled my nose-sugar, spice, and vinegar all mixed together, with just a hint of chicory coffee. The caffeine fumes comforted me the way they always did.
"Well, then, I guess this is good-bye."
Fletcher gave me a sly smile. "For now."
I nodded, turned, and walked over to the front door. For a moment, my hand hovered over the doorknob, and I wondered once more if this was the right thing to do. It would be easy to stay here with Fletcher-so easy. But like the old man had said before, I was Gin Blanco, Genevieve Snow, and the Spider. Easy wasn't in my vocabulary. It never had been.
I twisted the knob, opened the door, and stepped out into the cold. But I wasn't ready to go-not yet. I turned and stared back through the storefront windows, looking at the old man.
Our gazes met and held through the glass. Green on gray. Our love and respect for each other glowing as bright as the neon pig sign above the door.
Fletcher raised his hand to me in a silent wave, which I returned. Then the snow swirled between us once more, and he was gone.
Chapter 30
I shuddered in a breath and found myself staring into a pair of bright green eyes-eyes that were pinched tight with worry and fear.
"Fletcher?" I mumbled, my voice hoarse and raspy and broken. "Fletcher?"
I wheezed in another breath and wished that I hadn't. Pain flooded my body, snapping me out of whatever dream or limbo I'd been in. I was dimly aware of the agony coursing through my veins, of the sheer misery surging through me with every slow, erratic beat of my singed heart. But at the same time, I felt completely disconnected from myself, as though I were standing over my own body, watching my limbs twitch and writhe with pain with a dispassionate eye. I imagined the sensation probably had something to do with the fact that all of my nerve endings, hell, all my skin, had been seared off by Mab's elemental Fire.
But I'd gotten the bitch. I'd finally gotten her. I thought that I smiled then. I certainly wanted to, even as the blackness crept up on me again.