Free Misguided Angel by Melissa de La Cruz Page B

around to address her one last time, and his voice was gentle. "You know, Mimi, like you, I am also bereft. I'm aware it doesn't mean very much coming from me, but I am sorry this happened to you. I loved Schuyler very much, and I know how much you loved Jack."
    Jack! No one had dared say that name to her face. And it wasn't love she felt for her twin, but a confusing whirl of shock and sorrow. Love? Whatever love she had left had turned into a bright, glittering hate, a hate she nursed deep in her soul until it shone like an emerald.
    "Love," Mimi hissed. "You familiars know nothing about love. Delusional human, you never felt love; you only felt what the Kiss required you to feel. It's not real. It never was."
    Oliver looked so wounded that for a moment Mimi wanted to take it back, especial y since his were the first words of sympathy she had heard since losing everyone who had ever meant anything to her. Stil , it had felt good taking her hate and directing it outward. Too bad Oliver had tried to help. Fool: he'd only stood in the line of fire.

    FIFTEEN
    Seen Your Video
    The punching bag swayed back and forth like a pendulum, and Mimi gave it another satisfying kick--right in the center. She'd come straight to the gym after leaving her office for the day. She didn't need anyone's pity, least of al that stupid Repository scribe's. Times real y had to be tough if a human was feeling sorry for a vampire. Especial y one of her lineage and status. What was the world coming to? She had survived the crisis in Rome and weathered the journey to Plymouth, only to be the object of a Red Blood's sympathy? Absolutely ridiculous. She punched the bag again, sending it whirling to the other side of the room. Her muscles ached from spending the last four hours kickboxing the crap out of it.
    She pictured Jack's bloody face bowed in humiliation and begging for mercy. How satisfying it would be to unleash her fury at last. Every minute of every day she was consumed by revenge; she lived and breathed it; her anger fueled her wil to live. Where was he? What was he doing? Was he even thinking of her at al ?
    Why couldn't she just leave it alone, she wondered as the bag spun and knocked her off balance for a moment. She didn't even want Jack anymore--
    she had understood as much at the altar. He didn't want her, but she didn't want him either. So why was she so obsessed with his death? Because someone had to pay for Kingsley's. Kingsley was gone; he was dead, or trapped--it didn't matter. It was easier to feel a murderous rage against her brother than an overwhelming grief at her lover's demise. It kil ed Mimi to think that Jack had survived while Kingsley had not. That Jack was happy, somewhere out there with his half-blood concubine, and she was alone. Someone had to pay for the scope of what she had lost--someone had to pay. If Mimi couldn't be happy then she certainly didn't see why anyone else should be.
    It was beyond tiring being angry al the time, and Mimi craved the physical exhaustion her punishing workouts brought her. Most days after leaving the gym she would go home numb and too beat to do much else other than laze on the sofa with her laptop, replying to IMs and updating her status on social networking sites. On this particular night, the town house was empty when she returned, which was not a surprise. Trinity was out at some society function, as usual. The house was too big for just the two of them. The maids kept to themselves, and the silence was so depressing that on most nights Mimi had both the stereo and the television blasting while she surfed the Web.
    She threw her smel y gym clothes into the hamper and took a quick shower. Stil wearing her bathrobe, she fired up her computer and clicked on her in-box, scrol ing through the list of unread messages. Blinking at the top was an e-mail from an unknown address. Even though the Committee's tech team begged her to stop doing so, Mimi routinely disregarded warnings about the