Sweet Venom
Page 76

“So, there are more of us?” Greer asks.
I can sense her eagerness, can practically see her hope that maybe she doesn’t have to feel so responsible for this if there are others to take up the fight. I’m almost sad to burst her bubble. Almost.
“No,” I say. “There are only three in every generation.” I look at Gretchen, then back at Greer. “There’s only us.”
I don’t have an answer to the unspoken questions, though. Not yet. What about our mother? What about our aunts? Grandmothers and great-aunts? Cousins? Are they alive? If so, where are they and what are they doing?
We all fall silent in our own thoughts. Gretchen shoves a full forkload of tempura vegetables into her mouth. She doesn’t seem happy or excited or even hopeful about our sisterly reunion. I can’t help but be all three. This is what is supposed to happen.
As I stir my wasabi into a dish of soy sauce, I watch Greer take an elegant sip of soup. Her fingers hold the spoon perfectly, and she doesn’t spill or drip a single drop. Her face doesn’t betray any of the thoughts and questions I’m sure are racing through her mind.
Finally, she sets down her spoon next to the bowl, taking a moment to compose herself before asking, “What’s the point?”
“I don’t get the question,” Gretchen replies, then stuffs a big bite of shrimp into her mouth.
“The monsters come out,” Greer says. “One of— Somebody bites them. They go back. That’s it?”
“That’s pretty much it.” Gretchen takes a gulp of her water.
“And this goes on for, like, what? Forever? For the rest of our—your life?”
Gretchen looks thoughtful as she sets down her glass and considers Greer’s question. It’s a valid question. I mean, Gretchen’s been doing this for years, since we were twelve. Maybe she’s never thought about where it’s all going. Maybe she’s always been willing to devote her entire life to stalking monsters in the night. Or, as it’s been lately, in the day and dusk and dawn and any other time. Maybe she’s never asked herself the question, Then what?
“I—” Gretchen stammers. She looks uncertain for the first time since we met. Then, as if realizing her display of weakness, she clenches her jaw and flattens her palms on the table. “I don’t know.”
“I do,” I say.
Both girls look at me.
“Well, I know part of it,” I add. “It was in that Medusa book that told me about Greer, about the three sisters in every generation. It says that the monsters are sealed in the other realm until the Key Generation is born.”
“The Key Generation?” Greer echoes.
Gretchen asks, “What’s that?”
“It’s a set of triplets.” My heart races as I tell them everything I know. “Triplets that had to be separated at birth for their protection, and who are reunited when the time is right to break the seal.”
“Break the seal?” Gretchen barks. “That’s the only thing keeping the beasts from overrunning our realm. Why on earth would we break it?”
“The book didn’t say,” I answer quietly.
“Well, the book is wrong,” she snaps, pushing back from the table and lurching to her feet.
I wish that were true, if only to stop the pain I see in her eyes. She’s been dealt a lot of jarring and emotional blows in the past couple weeks. It’s no wonder she’s having a bad re-action to the latest news.
“The book is wrong, the rules are wrong.” She closes her eyes. “This whole situation is wrong. I’m out of here.”
I stand too, needing to be on equal ground. “Gretchen, don’t—”
“No.” She grabs her jacket off the back of her chair. “I’ve had enough.”
“You don’t mean that,” I say, desperate. She can’t walk away.
“I do,” she says, shrugging into her jacket. “Things were better before.”
My stomach plummets. “Before?”
Her silver eyes look directly into mine as she says, “Before we met.”
A thousand things run through my head, everything that’s happened in the past few days. The fact that she kidnapped me that first night. That we’re blood. That things are changing and she can’t do it alone anymore. That she agrees I need training, for my own protection.
I focus on the last one.
“What about my training?” I demand. I won’t let her toss me aside. Or Greer, either. I’ve been missing something all my life, and now that I know what it is—my sisters, my destiny—I can’t just let it slip away. “Greer needs training too.”
“You don’t need training,” she says, flicking a sneering glace at Greer.
“But—”
“You need to keep your heads down.” She shrugs into her leather jacket. “If you see a monster, look the other way.”
This can’t be happening. “But—”
“No,” she says. “Don’t. Don’t look the other way. Don’t react at all. As long as they don’t know you see them, they won’t know what you are.”
What I am. Who I am. Being a huntress is my heritage, my destiny. I won’t pretend that I don’t know. I won’t go back to being ordinary. I choose to embrace this life, this fate. I’m done being a cowering doormat. I want to stand up and be powerful.
“You’re not thinking this through,” I say, trying to reason with her. “What about the bounty? And talking with Sthenno? Or what if you get outnumbered because more monsters are getting out? What if they trap you or corner you in a—”