Page 152 of Saint Céline
Daniel’s jaw shifted. I knew that look. He was deciding whether violence would help him. Vincent saw it too, andsomething almost like amusement moved through his eyes before the regret returned.
“You will receive one payment,” Vincent continued. “Not from her. Not from her mother. From me. In exchange, you will leave Maine and never contact either of them again.”
My stomach turned.
Daniel’s attention flicked toward me. “How much?”
The fact that he asked so quickly should not have hurt, but it did anyway.
Vincent named an amount quietly enough that I could not hear it. Daniel heard. His expression changed. Greed was an ugly thing on a familiar face. For a second, I saw him not as a monster but as something smaller. A man who had sold his daughter’s fear faster than he had ever protected her. A man so ordinary in his cruelty that hating him felt almost humiliating.
Then he looked at me.
“Guess you got yourself a new keeper.”
My arm moved before I realized I had decided to display my rage. My palm cracked across his face hard enough to turn his head. The courtyard went silent. Daniel touched his cheek slowly, eyes widening with shock first, then rage. I thought he would hit me back. I wanted him to. That was the frightening part. I wanted the whole world to see him become what I knew he was, so I could stop sounding dramatic in my own memories.
Vincent stepped between us. A wall in a dark coat. Daniel looked from him to me, calculating again, adjusting himself around witnesses and money and the threat in Vincent’s silence. Then he smiled at me with a split of something almost paternal and completely vile.
“You always were your mother’s daughter.”
I did not answer. If I opened my mouth, I might scream.
Daniel stepped back first.
“I’ll wait for your call, sweetheart.”
“No,” Vincent said. “You’ll wait for mine.”
Daniel’s smile twitched. Then he left. He walked out through the archway with his shoulders hunched against the cold, just another poor man disappearing from a rich campus that would forget his face by dinner.
No one moved until he was gone. Then the sound returned all at once. Whispers. Footsteps. Someone asking what happened. Wendy saying my name from somewhere too far away.
I turned toward Vincent. He looked at me, and for the first time since I had known him, I saw something like caution in his face. Good. He should be careful.
“You did this,” I said.
“Yes, I did not plan for this to happen, though.”
My hand still stung from hitting Daniel. My mouth tasted metallic, though there was no blood this time. I thought of Katherine’s wrist slipping from my fingers and wondered if this was my punishment, finally finding me in another form. Maybe that was all life was.
The hands you let go return as hands around your throat.
“You brought him here so I’d run to you.”
Vincent’s expression did not change.
“Yes.”
Wendy made a small sound behind me. I had forgotten again. I turned and saw her standing by the stairs, face pale, eyes wide with the horror of someone who had heard too much without understanding enough. Behind her, two other students pretended to look away. This was public now.
I looked back at Vincent. He understood at the same time I did. Damage had already happened. The name Selena. My father. Money. Professor Moreau. Whatever rumour grew from this would not be accurate, but accuracy had never mattered much with student gossip. People filled gaps with whatever made the story more interesting.
I had spent years making Céline believable. Daniel had undone part of her in less than ten minutes. My chest tightened. The panic tried to rise again, but anger held it down.
“Come with me,” Vincent said quietly.
I laughed.
