Angelina cried after her sister dumped the entire story of what had been happening, what was happening, and what she was actually considering doing into her sister’s lap. After all, she couldn’t do any of this without her. She couldn’t give up her sister as well as daylight and her job and everything else.
“It’s not cool, it’s insane!” Marissa argued breathlessly. “You need to tell me it’s insane!”
“Look,” Lina said dryly, “if you came here wanting me to be the voice of reason, then clearly you don’t really want to be talked out of this.”
Well, she had a point there.
“I guess I don’t,” she confessed aloud, as if it were a dirty little secret that shouldn’t be spoken of, because saying it made it real. “But what about the whole dying part? I mean, surely …”
“You’re looking at it all wrong,” Lina said, her eagerness almost infectious. “It’s not dying, it’s … it’s … metamorphosis. You’re a pretty, fuzzy warm little caterpillar … and when you take this step you’ll be this magnificent, powerful, beautiful butterfly that will be so deeply loved and … oh, I’m so jealous I could spit! The only thing that kind of sucks is the sunlight part. I don’t know what I’d do if I couldn’t see the world in daylight every day.” Then she shrugged. “But from the sound of it you’ll be able to see in the dark almost as if it were daylight, so maybe it won’t really matter. Anyway …” She looked down at the bedspread and tugged at the fabric a little. “Anyway, it’ll be nice knowing that you’re safe, you’ll be happy, and that I won’t lose you anytime soon. From the sound of it you’ll potentially outlive me.”
“Believe me, some of those things are the ones I question. But … I’m realizing something. These people here are in pieces right now. With Jackson only just now becoming fully Blended, coming here to take on the reins of his government, they’ve been without the leaders they depend on for a very long time. Especially her. She only lived a week, as I understand it, before the Templars got to her last time. That means it’s been almost two hundred years since they were truly together.” She sighed in tandem with her sister. It really was terribly romantic, the idea of two souls striving for centuries for the expression on his faceu when that, opportunity to simply be with each other. To be able to touch one another. It made it easy to understand why Menes’s grief had outweighed his sense of duty to his people when he had lost his bride after only a few days. “And provided I can keep out of reach of the Templars, I could maybe help.”
“Think about it,” Lina said eagerly. “You’re a psychiatrist! Who better to have an empathic ability? How are you going to do it? Bullet to the brain? Or poison, like Cleopatra, dying in beautiful repose.” She laid back in the bed, one arm thrown dramatically over her head.
“Okay, it really creeps me out that you are excitedly talking about my suicide.” Marissa frowned. “I don’t know. I hadn’t thought that far ahead. I mean the bullet thing …” She shuddered. “No. It might be fast but … no. I think I’ll stick with the poison idea. Write myself a script for some heavy-duty sleep meds. I guess I have to talk to Jackson about it. I don’t know what the rules are here. Oh my god, I’m really doing this.” Marissa felt her throat clench tight even as the rest of her squirmed with excitement. “Provided he still wants me.” She sighed. “I haven’t been very nice to him.”
“He’ll forgive ya. They always do.”
“What if …” she began.
“Oh stop thinking and for once in your life just do,” her sister said with sudden vehemence. “Do what you really want to do and stop analyzing it. Stop trying to control it. Just … stop.”
Marissa took a breath and nodded. Angelina smiled and, wrapping her arms around her sister’s neck, hugged her tight. “Now … drop dead.”
She sniggered and Marissa pushed her away with a laugh, getting up and smoothing her skirt. “All right,” she said. “Here goes nothing … and everything. This is me, just doing. Going with those instincts and emotions and …”
“Leave!”
“Oh fine,” Marissa said, sticking her tongue out at Lina, dissolving their maturity completely back to when they’d been kids, making fun and teasing each other. Then