Page 33 of Beta Lies and Cursed Lives

As in...my curse is neutralized too?

My head is shaking fast as I back away from the two of them. “I’d never risk it.”

“But—”

“She doesn’t want to hurt us,” Rai says, his voice full of more force than I’ve ever heard from him. When he squeezed my hand, he asks, “Is there another way to test it?”

“You were there. at the end of my assessment. I saw you. You have to know I won’t hurt an animal.”

Rai’s gaze swivels to Colt. “She was told to freeze a rabbit, and instead froze a scientist to death.”

“I was told to!” I shout, telling them for the first time. “Major Tomlin promised to try and get my dad transferred out of Tenebrosa if I did it.”

Each of them looks equally shocked, and I don’t blame them. I’m sure it isn’t a regular occurrence for a Cursed to be told to kill a member of the GBE by another member of the GBE, and I’m sure that a Cursed trusting one is equally rare.

“Doctor Ness?” Colt’s voice is like air.

“Yeah,” I whisper back in response.

He looks at me, and the light drains from his green and blue eyes. His voice is robotic. “Did you make him suffer?”

His question takes me aback, but I remember...the look on Colt’s face when I mentioned my father was in Tenebrosa.

“You were there.”

“Yeah.” His arms cross over his chest. “I don’t care who told you to kill him or why, but I am glad that monster is no longer on this earth.”

I understand, to a degree. I didn’t personally suffer in that facility, but the desire to save my father drove me to being fine with murder.

And I still am. Maybe even more so now that I know they hurt my Colt.

MyColt?

“I am yours,” he says, voice even as he nears me and takes my other covered hand in both of his, drawing it to his lips and placing a kiss on my knuckles.

I’m both overjoyed and devastated.

It isn’t fair.

“Just try it, Mira.” Colt’s whisper is imploring. Desperate. “Touch me.”

My reaction is immediate and automatic. I recoil, horror on my face. “I can’t!” I shout at him; at both of them. “I could never chance it. I couldn’t…”

As the tears stream down my face, Rai wraps his arms around my shoulders, taking care not to touch my face with his chin. His voice is airy and quiet. “Don’t do anything you don’t want to.”

But I do want to.

I want this to work. I want to be able to touch them without killing them.

But it’s a chance I will not take.

Miranda

“We need to do something fun before we’re separated for a week.”

Arlowe swoops between me and Nyx, then loops her arms through ours, her short mahogany bob blowing in the cold breeze. Her head turns from me to Nyx before she scowls. “No ideas?”

Nyx lets out a laugh. “What fun can we have?”