Page 156 of Terror at the Gates

“Let’s go,” he said.

I followed him out of his office to the garage, where a sleek sedan was parked. Zahariev unlocked it as he headed around to the driver’s side. I slipped into the passenger seat. The leather was cold against my skin.

“Would you ever consider teaching me to drive?” I asked.

Zahariev glanced at me. “I’d teach you,” he said. “But let me buy a helmet first.”

“Fuck off,” I said, pushing him.

He chuckled, laughing at his own joke.

We were quiet as we left the compound, but there was nothing comfortable about the silence. It was razor-sharp, digging into me from all sides. All I could think was that this car was too small to contain what was between us.

“The conversation you were having with Cassius,” I said as Zahariev turned left onto Procession Street, only to makea quick right on Providence. “You never asked me what I wanted.”

“I didn’t?”

I looked at him, but he stared straight ahead.

“You know you didn’t,” I said. “So why don’t you ask me now?”

Zahariev waited until he was parked in the lot outside my complex.

“I don’t need to ask a question I already know the answer to,” he said.

It was true we had discussed this in the cemetery outside my parents’ house. I wouldn’t let him go to war over me. If it came down to it, I would return to Hiram to save him and everyone I cared about from a nightmare.

“That’s the answer to what I willchoose,” I said. “Not the answer to what I want.”

“Because what you want doesn’t matter if you’re going to choose something else.”

I ground my teeth against the pain of his words and got out of the car. Zahariev followed. If I could have gone into the apartment and locked him out, I would have, but I didn’t have my key, so I had to wait for him to open it.

Zahariev entered first, scanning the place for anything suspicious, but there was nothing untoward. I went to my bedroom and opened my nightstand drawer, finding the blade where I left it.

“Couldn’t make this convenient for me, could you?” I muttered as I picked it up.

I turned with it in hand, pulling the blade from the sheath, glaring at Zahariev, who stood just inside the doorway.

“You gonna stab me?” he asked.

“Would it make you talk?”

“I guess it depends on how you used it,” he said.

I stared and then shoved the blade into its sheath before sliding it onto the table behind me.

“You are a coward, Zahariev.”

His jaw ticked and his eyes darkened.

“If I were a coward, I would have walked away from you a long time ago.”

“You think you’re brave for handling me?”

“No one handles you, Lilith,” he said. “Good fucking luck to the man who tries.”

My eyes burned, but I couldn’t tell if it was with rage or pain. Maybe it was both.