Page 137 of Terror at the Gates

“Yes, sir,” Felix said, boosting the volume on his music, filling the space with a mournful, almost ethereal lilt.

“How is Gabriel?” I asked.

“Hard to say,” said Zahariev.

I glanced at him and found he was looking at me.

“How are you?” he asked.

“I’m fine,” I said, though even I knew I’d failed to deliver that lie convincingly.

The truth I didn’t want to face was that I was afraid, and not just of blades and demons and gods behind gates.

Tonight, I was basically subjecting myself to a firing squad of overt judgment and backhanded compliments in a space where my trauma was born and gluttonously fed.

It didn’t matter how much I had changed or how brave I felt. In my parents’ home, I was a child again, hurt and desperate for love.

As we headed north on Procession Street, I stared out the window. Now and then, the lights would flicker. Maybe there was something to what Zahariev had said about my mother using up all the available electricity. It wouldn’t be the first time something like that happened, but it was usually during situations when the weather was bad.

I wasn’t sure why it bothered me so much either. It just felt like a very bad omen.

I swallowed a lump in my throat as the SUV slowed, coming upon a line of cars, all inching their way into the hills of Hiram. My family home was nestled at the very top of those winding, narrow roads, surrounded by aged oaks and white pines.

I didn’t miss the life I’d had here, but there were things I had loved, like trees and the smell of the earth after rain. They were things I’d taken for granted, never once assuming people in other districts lived without them. It was only later, once I’d come to Nineveh, that Zahariev had explained the deforestation of his district by one of his great-great-grandfathers.

He’d had reasons—they’d needed the lumber for businesses, housing, and furniture. Then they’d needed wider roads and space to build more clubs and hotels.

As he’d explained the systematic decimation of his district, he’d also taken the magic of mine.

You think men build houses around all those pretty trees high on your hill?He had laughed at my ignorance.There isn’t a single part of Hiram that wasn’t made to look the way it is now.

It wasn’t what we’d been taught, but it made sense now that I had been deprogrammed. Hiram was the closest district to the Garden of Eden. By default, it meant that only the godliest could reside there, but it also meant that the landscape had to reflect its proximity. What would it say about God or sanctity if the district closest to evil was more beautiful?

The irony now was that if what Saira said was true, Nineveh was actually closest to true divinity.

I took a breath, trying to ease the pressure building in my chest as we neared, when I felt Zahariev’s touch. It was a graze at first, just down the inside of my arm as he sought to lace his fingers with mine. A wave of heat rushed to my face and quickly receded. It was dizzying and delightful in a way that other, more erotic things weren’t.

I looked at him.

“I’ve got you,” he said. His voice was quiet and coaxed another swell of pleasing heat to the surface of my skin.

“I know,” I said.

We stared at each other, and a quiet tension built between us. It made me want those other, more erotic things, so I looked away. I would experience my fair share of rejection tonight, and I didn’t need it from the one person who constantly saved me from the storm.

I knew we were close when Felix turned down his music and glanced at us in the rearview.

“If you really don’t want to stay, I can back into one of you with the car. Bam! Perfect excuse to leave.”

“That won’t be necessary,” said Zahariev. “But stay close.”

I felt strongly that by the end of the night, we’d regret not taking him up on the offer.

Zahariev let his fingers slip from mine as Felix came to a stop and I pulled on my gloves.

An attendant waited and opened Zahariev’s door. He stepped out, pausing to button his jacket before offering his hand. I took it and let him help me out of the car, but he didn’t move once I was on my feet.

“Need to adjust anything?” he asked.