Page 28 of Night Fury
Luke grunted in response. Johanna rested her head under his, but this time she wrapped her arms around his back. He sighed and hugged her. It was a little too tight, but she wouldn’t complain.
“I left college after that. I was too ashamed to tell my loved ones what happened. Soon after, my grandmother got sick. The closest hospital was in New York so I decided to move here to spend as much time with her as I could. Everyone thought it was a horrible idea. You need to be tough to make it out here, you need to have a backbone. You need to be a fighter, and I’d never shown any promise in those areas.”
Luke huffed but otherwise stayed silent.
“At first, they were right. It was hard being here essentially on my own. But this was my chance at a fresh start away from all the horrible experiences I’d had back home. No one knew me here, and so I could be anything, anyone, I wanted to be. My grandmother was also a formidable woman. She was a child during one of our wars, and she believed if you were backed into a corner, you should always fight to get yourself out.”
“She sounds like a wonderful woman,” Luke said, relaxing a little more under her.
“She was. You would have loved her. She was good for me, and the city was good for me too. But then I found out the man from college had taken pictures and a video of me the night he’d assaulted me.”
Luke tensed again and she could tell he was going to say something, so she cut him off before he could. “I took him to court. When the case seemed like it wasn’t going in my favor, I forced it to. I manipulated the judge with my powers, and I took revenge on the man who assaulted me. He’s in a mental hospital right now, and he will never,everget out.”
“Good,” Luke said firmly.
“That’s notgood, Luke!” She tried to draw back from him but he wouldn’t let her. “That’s not something someone should do. That’s not something agoodperson would do. I broke him, and I enjoyed it. I wasproudof it! I went on with my life. I had no remorse back then, but now I find out that it happened all over again and I dragged my grandmother into it. She died because ofme!What if that’s my penance? What if all of that was just karmic justice for what I’d done? What happens if I do it again and I draw someone else into it, like you? I’m not … I’m not worth it, Luke. I’m just not.”
Luke brushed her hair back from her face. “So that’s what you’re scared of?”
A little part of Johanna shriveled and died as she nodded.
“Sunflower, no one deserves what happened to you.”
She shook her head.
“Do you think I’m a good person?” he asked.
She sighed. “Of course you are.”
Luke’s lips tipped up at her response. “I’ve killed people. A lot of people.”
“And I’m sure you did it for a reason.”
“So what’s the difference between me and you?”
Johanna threw her arms in the air. “I was selfish, Luke! I did it because I was angry and I wanted justice.”
“The difference between being called the hero or the villain is the person telling the story,” Luke said.
“I don’t understand what you mean.”
“It’s simple. You think you’re the villain because you took revenge, but you’re not. Against all the odds, you took what happened to you and let it go. You moved on with your life until it escalated, and when you tried to get justice for yourself and thought you wouldn’t, you made sure you did. You call that being selfish, but you don’t know who else that person assaulted. By getting away with it once, they could have done it a hundred other times. They could have been planning to do it again the night they won the case. You don’t know what could have happened, but you stopped whatever it was from happening. That makes you good, Johanna.”
She shook her head, but he cupped her cheeks to make her focus on him.
“You’re good, sunflower. And as for what happened to you and your grandmother, I don’t think karma had anything to do with that. I think…” He paused seeming to search for the words.
Johanna gripped his wrists in desperation. “Please, tell me.”
“I think the reason you went through all of this is because you had the strength to.”
Johanna’s eyes widened.
“I need you understand that doesn’t mean I think you deservedanyof what happened to you. You don’t, and the fact that you thought you did breaks my heart.” Luke’s fingertips rubbed over her cheek. “He took you because of who you are, and he kept you because of what you can do. But you beat him, sunflower. You saved people. You’ve continued to save people, and that’s just from what we know now. Imagine what else we’ll find out once you get your memories back. You took a horrible situation and did something good with it. Most people wouldn’t be able to do that. Most people would have sacrificed everyone else over themselves. You did the complete opposite. You’re a hero to those people, and every time you treat yourself like the villain you are trivializing what they went through. I know you don’t want to do that.”
She shook her head. “I don’t, but I don’t know how—”
“I understand how you were treated, and I understand why you think so poorly of yourself, but are those people around you right now?”
