Page 2 of Truthfinder’s Promise

“May I come in? I was hoping we could talk.”

“I have nothing to talk with you about.”

“That isn’t exactly true. I think we have a great deal to discuss. I also think you’ll find it more pleasant if we have this conversation voluntarily.”

So they had moved on to coercion via implied threats. Wonderful. “Go home, Julian. Before I decide to call Siren and have the Council’s security remove you.”

He smiled. “Ah, yes. Your new pocket politician. I couldn’t help but notice you quit taking my calls after she ascended the ranks. How long do you think she’ll stand by you once she realizes you simply traded one friend in a high place for another?”

Meredith’s fingers clenched on the steering wheel. “Is there a reason you’re still here?”

Julian ignored the question, musing aloud. “And if she doesn’t put that together, there’s still the inevitable question of how long she’ll be comfortable having you around. A woman can get so touchy about her husband’s exes, and you weren’t subtle when you failed to win Jace back.”

And now he’d moved on to telling her she was soon to have no one left, and was a failure. She ignored the small voice whispering that he was probably right. “Siren isn’t so insecure that she’s threatened by me.”

Julian tsked. He put his arm on the roof of the car and leaned in. “When your happy little pretend family comes crumbling down around you, when they realize that you’re not worth it and you have no one else to turn to, I’ll still be here. And when you find things tapping at your defenses and you wonder what I wanted to talk to you about, I’ll answer the phone when you call.”

He patted the hood of her car and walked away. She didn’t take a full breath until he drove off, didn’t open her gate until he’d been gone for over five minutes. She pulled just inside and waited until they closed behind her before driving on.

When you find things tapping at your defenses… His words followed her into the house, where the white walls and white furniture made everything feel cold and sterile. Everything in Savannah Townsend’s house was white, and the woman might be dead but this was still her house.

Things had been tapping at Meredith’s defenses. Little testing scritches and scratches at her wards over the last few months. Careful, always so careful, so as not to draw attention. But she’d noticed anyway. Because some part of her had always expected her mother’s sins to come back to haunt her.

Which was why, even in the grips of her alcoholism, she’d sunk every spare drop of her Aspect into her property wards. They hummed along the perimeter, sure and steady, so strong it would take a double team of Breakers to crack them open. That, or a lot of people willing to die.

The knowledge did nothing to make her feel safe. Had it been Julian poking at her wards all these months? Or did he simply know who was doing it and want to trade information? Or maybe no one was testing her wards and she was just a paranoid woman, living alone in a too-big house that gave her the creeps.

If Julian had tested her defenses at all he would have felt how much power was in them and realized she was worried about something breaking in. He probably didn’t know anything. He’d guessed at her fears and was using them to get what he wanted. That was all.

She dropped onto the couch and kicked her heels off, pulling one of her feet onto the opposite thigh so she could rub at the sore arch. Of all the things she hated her mother for, high heels probably shouldn’t rank near the top of the list, but they did.

She’d been forced into her first pair at twelve. They’d gotten progressively higher year after year, and she’d been allowed so little time out of them that her muscles and tendons had shortened. Meredith was working to stretch them back out, but she didn’t know if the lifelong damage was something she could undo on her own. She did know that if she tried to walk flat-footed right now, she’d end up on crutches for a couple of weeks. She’d tried, she’d failed, she had the crutches in the hall closet to prove it.

The white walls glared at her. Maybe she should paint them. Some color her mother would think entirely inappropriate for a living room. Like red or neon green or black. She had the notion that if she could somehow make this house hers—this house, where she’d grown up, where her father had died, where her mother had controlled her—she would somehow mend the broken parts of herself.

She just didn’t know how to make it hers. Every time she thought of doing something like painting or buying new furniture, she saw her mother’s superior sneer, heard her cold, condescending voice tell her that she could paint the walls like a rebellious teenager, but it wouldn’t change anything. Because Meredith could alter the house but she would still be the same. And she was nothing.

Feeling maudlin, she slipped her heels back on and walked down to the basement. It was outfitted like a separate apartment within the home, complete with kitchen, laundry, and private entrance via a cellar-like door. Most of her admittedly few fond childhood memories were in this basement. Where her father had lived. Where he’d died.

“I miss you, Dad.”

The house didn’t answer. It never did.

Her phone rang. She picked it up, fully intending to turn the damn thing off, when she saw Valkyrie’s name on the screen.

She answered. “Hey.”

“Hey,” Valkyrie’s smooth voice rolled across the line. “What are you doing?”

“Standing in my basement, staring at the spot where my dad died.” It occurred to her that if Valkyrie chose to go back to her childhood home, she too could stare at the spot where her dad died. The difference was, Valkyrie’s father had been the monster in her family unit and she’d killed him herself.

“You need to move out of that house,” Val said. It was a testament to their recently-renewed friendship—and how much Valkyrie understood her—that her best friend didn’t tell her she needed a therapist.

Meredith undoubtedly did need one, but she’d tried it once and couldn’t bring herself to go back. Her Aspect—Truthfinding—meant she could spot a lie from a mile away. And everything about therapy had felt like a lie. The practiced spiel of a person whose job it was to listen to her, to nod understandingly and say all the right things meant to urge her toward emotional recovery.

But the woman hadn’t meant any of it. Underneath the veneer of kindness had been a bone-deep apathy, a tired ennui born from years of listening to people’s problems and insecurities. Meredith didn’t want to be anyone’s problem. And she certainly didn’t want to pay someone to listen to hers.

“Mer?” Val prompted.