She shrugged, but relaxed enough to let the razor-sharp incisors retract. Her eyes returned to their normal striking ice-blue shade. “So are you done bitching now? Ready to throw in a ‘Hi, sis. Thanks for saving my ass back there. Great to see you again.’?”
He sighed, shaking his head. “It is good to see you again, little sister. How are you?”
“I’m good. So far. And you?”
“Fine.”
“Typical. One-word answers always were your thing. And I see you’re still trying out ways to use your gift. You decide to eradicate death altogether now, or just for those you deem too young to die?”
He lowered his head. “I didn’t need your help, you know. I do this sort of thing all the time.”
“I know you do. Unlike you, big brother, I care enough to keep track of my kin.”
He closed his eyes. “I’d see you more often if you didn’t give me this lecture every single freaking time.”
“What lecture? The one about abandoning your family? About turning your back on what you truly are, J.W.?”
“It’s James.”
“It’s J.W. It’s always been J.W., and it’ll always be J.W.”
“And I didn’t abandon my family or turn my back on what I am.”
“No? When’s the last time you exposed your fangs, J.W.? When’s the last time you tasted human blood?”
The last time…? It had been when he and his sister—his twin—had been adolescents, and their honorary “aunt” Rhiannon had insisted they imbibe. From a glass, not a warm pulsing throat, and still it had repulsed him.
“You’re lying to yourself,” Brigit said. “It was delicious. It set your soul on fire and left you craving more, and you know it as well as I do.”
He was startled, but only briefly. “I’m not used to being around someone who can read my every thought.”
“Yeah, well, whose fault is that?”
“Look, I admit, the blood was…appealing. That’s what repulsed me. I don’t want to be…that way. And I’m not denying who I am, I’m choosing who I want to be, even while trying to discover why I’m here, why I was given this power.” He turned his palms up and stared at them, as he had so often throughout his life. “Power over life and death.”
“You’ve always been so sure there’s a reason,” she said softly.
“I know there is, Brigit.”
She nodded. “Well, I hate to admit this, bro, but you’re right. There is a reason. And I have recently discovered what it is.”
He stared at his beautiful twin, his opposite in almost every way. And yet they were the only two of their kind. He was certain she was kidding at first, because she had always teased and taunted him about his yearning for meaning, his quest for understanding. His innate sense of goodness and morality. But she didn’t laugh or even smile at him this time. And her face was stone serious.
“You think you know why we were born?”
“Yeah. And it’s not to run along the seashore revivifying dead starfish and tossing them back into the waves like you did when we were kids, or to cure little girls with cancer.” She licked her lips and shot him a quick look. “That’s what you did, just now, isn’t it? Cured her?”
He felt warm all over, and his smile was genuine. “Yeah. She’s gonna be just fine.”
Brigit’s lips curved upward, too, before she bit back the smile and put her trademark stern expression back in place. She was a hard-ass. Or at least she liked people to think she was. They’d played these roles all their lives, and he often wondered why she’d taken to hers as easily as he had taken to his.
His was easy. He was the good twin. The healer. The golden child.
Hers was a harder role to embrace. She was the bad twin. The destroyer, in a manner of speaking. And yet she’d never once complained about the label, even mostly seemed to try to live up to the tag—or rather, live down to it.
“Well?” he asked at length. “Are you going to tell me?”
“I think I have to show you.” She nodded at a magazine that was rolled up and tucked into the cup holder between them.
He sighed, about to argue with her, but when he met her eyes, he found her mind open, as well. Nothing hidden, no barriers, which was a very rare thing for his sister. He narrowed his eyes and felt only sincerity coming from her. No pretense, no hidden motives.
“The end of the world is coming, bro. It’s coming—and we’re the