Rage of Vendetta (The Vendetta Series #2)

Epilogue

Epilogue

TWO YEARS LATER

I tap my foot impatiently. If we don’t leave soon, we’re going to be caught in rush hour.

“Dad!” I yell into the kitchen, picking up my bag from the bottom of the staircase. “Let’s go!”

Since freshman year, I’ve come home every Sunday. I take a few buses into Connecticut in the morning, then Dad drives me back to New York in the late afternoon. We’re running late today because Sebastian practically trashed the house a few hours ago, and we had to clean it up. 

"Dad!" I grouse.

Last Wednesday was Sebastian’s birthday, his eighteen birthday, to be precise, and he’s still in the process of trying out his new active angel blood.

“Give me a second, dinner is going to burn otherwise,” Dad calls from his stove-guarding position. “You’re not staying?”

There are footsteps shuffling at the top of the staircase. “Nah,” I reply, perking my ears. “I already made plans with the others—” 

It’s then that I feel a whoosh of air, and without even looking first, I grin and whirl out of the way, pressing against the wall. 

Sebastian crashes into the carpet, face-first. 

Mom rushes out the kitchen from where she was chopping vegetables. “What on earth are you doing now?”

Her blonde hair is tied back at the base of her scalp, lighter than ever after she chose to grow out the dye. I think the whole disintegrating after being stabbed took a toll on her. Mom got rid of everything she owned that was touched by the battle. It’s a good thing I never told my parents I died and came back to life in that battle. I mean, I was going to, but then a week passed, and then a month, and then a year, and now some things they are just better off not knowing and freaking out over.

“I’m okay, thanks for asking,” Sebastian wheezes, rolling around. 

He’s been trying to successfully attack me with his new Nephilum abilities since 7 AM this morning when I walked into the house. It didn’t work out well for him at all like he had hopes; he was hiding behind the doorway, and I was a little startled.

(“Since when did you own a giant sword?” Mom had demanded, locking it up in her closet later. “From this moment forward, no more weapons in my house!” I didn’t risk telling her that I had five more knives concealed on my body, that there was a small bow and three arrows sewn into my jacket, and that my necklace, in truth, was very thin razor-wire.)

“May as well give up, kiddo,” Dad tells Sebastian, grabbing his keys as he exits the kitchen and steps over Sebastian’s slumped form nonchalantly. “You can wow your friends with your new-found reflexes tomorrow. You’re not besting your sister anytime soon.”

“Wow them, but don’t tell them,” I warn.

“I know,” Sebastian says from the floor. “I’ve been told, like, five hundred times.”

Seven, actually: he’s been visited by all the Branches within this week, every one of them trying to campaign him to swear Allegiance to them, adding on a lecture about the importance of secrecy. He hasn’t decided which to join yet, supposedly, but I’ve a feeling he’ll be swearing to Fifth Branch too. Magnolia needs the support, especially with the stirrings of rebellion last month that I hurried to tamp down and extinguish. I swear, what would that fourteen-year old do without me as her Second?