Reviving Izabel

“Answering questions with questions,” he points out with slight a

“Is he pissed?” I feel my face fall. I hope he’s not pissed.

Fredrik shakes his head. “No,” he says as though he’s disappointed by the truth. “He said you coming here today would be no different than any other day.” He looks at me authoritatively. “But you should’ve at least told me instead of sneaking out. What are you? Fifteen?”

I smirk at him.

“Is everything all right?” Spencer asks stepping up, eyeing Fredrik coldly from the side. Jacquelyn disappears inside the office on the other side of the room.

“Yeah, everything’s fine,” I say. “Spencer, this is Fredrik. Fredrik, Spencer, my trainer.”

Spencer’s dark brown eyes move in his motionless head to see me and then fall back on Fredrik. “Is this someone Victor knows? He specifically told me not to allow anyone but him in here to see you.” He narrows his eyes on Fredrik and looks like he’s ready to take him down any second.

Fredrik, on the other hand, is smiling faintly, standing with his hands folded in front of him, his posture refined. Fredrik may not be able to win against Spencer in hand-to-hand combat, but I truly am more worried about Spencer because I know what Fredrik is capable of.

I step into the space between them.

“Victor knows Fredrik,” I say. “He just never expected that Fredrik would have to come here.”

The two size each other up quietly and then Spencer nods and says to me, “OK, but if you need anything….”

“I know. Thanks.” I smile.

Spencer leaves Fredrik and me standing alone. He disappears inside the office with Jacquelyn just a few students enter the building and drop their bags on the floor by the far wall.

“Victor’s coming back tonight,” Fredrik says, lowering his voice and afterwards looking over his shoulder.

I walk with him farther way from the people getting prepared to train.

“I’m surprised you got through to him,” I say. “I tried calling him once last night but I couldn’t get through.”

Fredrik nods. “No signal where he was for the majority of the time.”

I look over my shoulder now. “So then he…finished the job?” I ask in a whisper.

“Yes. Velazco has been taken care of. I’ll be dealing with the other son tonight.”

“You’re going to kill him?” I whisper even lower, constantly looking at my surroundings to make certain no one is in earshot of our very criminal conversation.

Fredrik’s eyes widen just a little around the edges to indicate that he’d rather I not say anything else incriminating inside this place. He takes me by the arm, carefully fitting his fingers around my elbow, and walks me toward the front door. Not until we’re standing outside on the sidewalk does he feel it’s safe enough to speak.

“He deserves to die,” Fredrik assures me and I get the feeling he thought I might have a problem with it.

Maybe I do, in a way. Only now am I realizing it.

“Well, what…,” I pause and take a deep breath, “…what exactly has David done to deserve to die? What did Andre Costa do? I know that their father, Velazco, has done a lot of bad to a lot of people, but I just…I don’t know, I feel like you’re punishing them just as brutally as Velazco for the things that only Velazco has done.”

Fredrik shakes his head glumly at me. “No. Velazco’s sons and the men who work for him are the ones who get their hands dirty. They are the ones who do the kidnapping, who carry out most of the kills, the rapes. Every single one of them deserves what they get.”

“But how do you know that Andre Costa and David have directly kidnapped, raped or killed someone?”

“I have my sources,” he says. “That’s all you need to know.”

“I thought I was part of this,” I say with slight offense.

“You’re not the one killing them.” He buries his hands deep in the pockets of his jeans. “If it ever comes down to that, you being expected to kill someone, then you can ask all the questions that you want.”

I don’t like his answer, but I accept it and leave it alone. I sigh heavily and walk over to stand with my back pressed against the brick wall, crossing my arms over my stomach and propping a foot on the wall behind me to hold my balance.

“Speaking of me killing people,” I say. “I feel like Hamburg and Stephens are drifting farther away from me every day. I’m tired of waiting. I want to kill them. I want this done and over with.”

Fredrik stands next to me, with his back against the wall, too.

We both look out into the street, watching cars pass through the green light.

“What are you going to do when they’re dead?” he asks. “Is that going to be it? You finish them off, get your revenge, and then go about your life?”

“No,” I say without looking over at him, my voice distant because my mind is faraway thinking about it all. “No, they won’t be the last.”

I realize that this is something that I haven’t even said to Victor yet. Not because I was keeping it from him, but because I’m only now understanding it myself. Surprised by my own answer, I become lost in the moment, staring at the intersection as the cars blur in and out of focus.

“You’re not so different from me. You know that, right?” Fredrik asks.

Finally, my head falls to the right and I look at him. I look at his tall brooding form, his calm demeanor that I know is only a disguise which perfectly hides away the dangerous man who truly lives in there, not so far from the surface. I see a man who although I haven’t the slightest clue as to why or how he turned out the way he did, other than what Seraphina did to him, I know that he went through something much worse than she could ever inflict. I feel it. I sense it. And disturbingly enough, I feel like I can somehow relate to it.

“Maybe so,” I say and look away. “Though, when it comes to how we…deal with people…you and I are nothing alike.”

“Oh, I’m not so sure that’s true,” he says with a smile in his voice.

Perhaps the fact that I don’t argue with him about it right away is proof that he might be right.

Thankfully, Fredrik changes the subject. “Have you had breakfast?” he asks.

“I’m not really hungry.”

He leans away from the wall, dropping his hands to his sides and then steps around in front of me. Jerking his head back once he says, “Come on, I’m starving. There’s a bakery down the street. I haven’t had a decent pastry in a long time.”

I start to decline the invitation, but then decide to join him anyway. I poke my head inside the studio, standing halfway outside at the front door and yell across the room to Spencer and Jacquelyn, telling them where I’m going and that I’ll be back later. Spencer, with that untrusting look in his eye, argues with me for a second, saying I shouldn’t skip out on anymore training. He’s right about that, but I know really what he’s worried about is me leaving the studio with Fredrik.

Moments later, I hop in Fredrik’s car and we’re driving toward the bakery a few miles from the studio.

“Fredrik, why do you think Niklas would betray Victor the way he has?”

Fredrik merges onto the freeway.

“I don’t know,” he says. “Jealous, I suppose. Niklas always did live in Victor’s shadow in the Order. For as long as I’ve known them.”

“Yeah but…,” I sigh and glance over and then keep my eyes trained out ahead, “…I just don’t understand why he’d do that, I mean…,” I look right at him now, finally figuring out what I had wanted to say. “Niklas tried to kill me to protect Victor. He shot me. I guess I’m just having a hard time understanding what could make him do what he’s done after everything he did before to protect his brother. How any person can change like that.”

We turn right onto Paseo De Peralta and before long I see the big red oval sign on the bakery building out ahead as we get closer.