Part VI
The back of Artemis’s head ached as she leaned her forehead against the table before her. Seneca sat across from her, hands folded in his lap as he watched her.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
She looked up, glaring at him. “Find something new to ask.”
He rolled his eyes, laughing. “Do you think I don’t know?”
She looked at him. For once, she didn’t see the bleached blonde hair but rather the dark brown hair he used to have. Once again, blood was spattered on his face, marring his sharp features. His eyes were cold as steel, concentrated and full of fury. He had changed so much since she had first met him.
That was a good thing, right? The whole purpose of his sentence was to change him, to change her. Yet she remained the same, changed only slightly.
“Do you regret it?” she asked, sitting up. “What we did.”
The smile disappeared from his face. “I told you not to bring this up. I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Do you regret it?” she repeated, ignoring what he said. “At all?”
“Of course I regret it!” he snapped, slamming his hands down on the tabletop. “Every night I am haunted by it. Every night I wake up in a cold sweat, hating myself for the things I did. How could I not? Did those people deserve it? Did they, Artemis? Your father may have been a bad person, but what about the others? What did they do wrong for us to slaughter them?”
“It wasn’t your command and it wasn’t mine either,” she clenched her jaw. “We were just the people that had to carry it out.”
“Do you regret it?” he asked her the question. “At all?”
Rolling her head to the side, she sighed. “I don’t think I do.”
He raised an eyebrow. “It doesn’t keep you up at night?”
“How could it not?” she glared at him. Subconsciously, she drummed her fingers on the table counter, thinking. “How do you just walk away from something like that, unscarred by it?”
“So you regret it,” he stated.
She shook her head. “No, I don’t. If I had the chance to go back and do it again, I would.”
His eyes widened.
“Because, when all is said and done,” she continued. “It was my decision to join the renegades. It was my choice to kill those people, to kill my father.”
“You don’t think you made the wrong decision?”
They had the same conversation a hundred times and their answers never changed. The reason they repeated it so many times wasn’t to get through to the other what they were feeling but rather to solidify what they thought. Over 900 years and Artemis still couldn’t decide whether she regretted it or not.
“Maybe I did,” she stood. “Maybe I made a drastic mistake and that’s why I can’t forgive myself.” She leaned forward. “Because deep down, in the bottom of my heart, maybe I do regret it. Just a little bit.”
His eyes met hers and she realized what she had said. She had never admitted to that, ever. For a moment, she got lost in her own mind, unaware that Seneca had stood and walked around the table. Only when he wrapped his arms around her shoulders and pulled her closer to him did she realize she hadn’t been paying attention.
Seneca had changed so much—even his hugs weren’t the same. In the past, when he had hugged her, it was to comfort her and the hugs were cold and empty, a mere arm around her shoulder. But now, they were warm and tight, begging for her to be okay and for him to stay strong.
She had forgotten what it had felt like to feel someone pulling her close to them, the warmth of their body spreading over her, making her feel as if she belonged. She went to put her arms around his waist but stopped and let them fall back to her side. The fact that Seneca had changed was something she hated. She missed the old him, the one that didn’t hesitate to do what needed to be done.
Pushing away from him, she turned and headed for the stairs. She stopped at the base, hand resting on the banister.
“Good night, Seneca,” she spoke. Her voice was soft and tired as it seemed to dance through the foyer of the house.
He nodded, not speaking so she walked up the stairs, their creaks following her all the way to her bedroom. She stopped, her hand resting on the doorknob while regret settled in her stomach.
She shouldn’t have pushed him away. He needed someone to be there for him just like he had always been there for her. But she couldn’t be that person. Not now, not ever.
With a sigh, she slipped into her room and shut the door as silently as possible. She didn’t bother to turn the light on but rather tiptoed across the room where she slipped around of the black lace dress and into an over-sized hoodie.
She collapsed onto her bed, staring off into space. If she couldn’t be that person for him, why should he have to waste so many years being that person for her? She sat up and looked around the room, trying to find something to distract her yet everything she saw somehow reminded her of the past.
“Why can’t I just forget?” she sighed, burying her face in a pillow. “Why can’t I just forget already?”
Her eyes burned as the tears formed but she refused to let them fall. She was so sick of the sadness resting in the pit of her stomach, making her heart ache. It would be a matter of weeks until she got used to Tay’s absence and a few weeks later, a new Clan would be sent.
Just a few more weeks of this torture and she’d be okay. Just a handful of days avoiding the thoughts and she’d make it through.
A car went by on the street outside, its headlights illuminating the wall on the opposite side of the room and the painting that hung there. The painted flames seemed to spring to life for a split second, burning in her mind as the memories washed over her again.
A few weeks was too long.