Chapter 17: 4th Time Around

If Lily stopped talking she would have to look at Michael. Worse, she’d have to see him looking back at her. Judging her. Knowing her.

“That’s it,” she said, to the puddle of whiskey. “Found out later he sold us out to the Coalition, made a deal with them. If I’d killed him sooner I could’ve saved myself and the Union, but I wasn’t strong enough.”

Michael’s face was in his hands. “How could you have known? You can’t blame yourself.”

“Yes I can,” Lily said. “I had one hundred and eighty-seven chances to kill him in his sleep. I wanted to do it. But I let him live, let him keep…I’m a coward. I can’t…I can’t act. People get hurt, people die, because I can’t…”

He couldn’t even look at her. He had his eyes on his clasped hands, on the bare concrete floor. “I don’t think you’re angry at the right person.”

“What do you know,” Lily spat. “You know why I helped you? Why you’re alive? I was gonna turn you in to save myself.”

“But you didn’t,” Michael said, without even the slightest note of condescension.

Lily shook her head, sick from more than just the whiskey. Castor had died too quickly, in the end. She’d never gotten the chance to scream in his face all the things that churned through her at night. “You don’t know anything.”

Michael exhaled laughter, but it was decidedly unhappy. “I know killing him wouldn’t have saved the Union.”

The bottle in her lap looked like wine; she picked at the cork with a jagged fingernail. “How’s that.”

He was in transition. The cold thing he’d been in the east seemed superimposed over the warm, familiar present. “Do you want me to tell you what I’ve done?”

“Yes,” Lily said, softly. Without hesitation.

“This is everything I remember.” Michael sat up straight, shoulders back, eyes distant. A little of the old deadness crept into his voice. “I’ll start at the beginning. It won’t take long.”