Page 157 of Cold-Blooded Creatures

“I didn’t shut you out because of that.” He ripped his white sleeve up to his elbow, revealing the scars he had burned into himself by my order. “And that was war. This is different.”

I clutched the other side of the door frame to steady myself. The matte and shiny swirls on his forearm leeched my strength, drop by drop. “It’s death,” I gritted out.

“That’s the point. She shouldn’t have to deal with it by herself. Believe me, I know.”

“I—” I hit the door frame, and the dull thump morphed into a hammer striking my ribs. “Give her time until her shift ends.”

Losing someone felt like being shredded apart. Like a part of you had been torn off, never to return, and the gaping hole never to fully heal.

There was no difference in losing someone by their untimely death or because of your thoughtless commands.

50

KALI

Ididn’t see the faces of our customers as I weaved between the tables at Vice. I didn’t hear Tarri’s questions about where I’d been yesterday and where Jayla had disappeared and that Ava was searching for her. I didn’t smell the alcohol in drinks the bar was putting on my tray to bring to the tables. I didn’t notice customers trampling my feet by accident. And I didn’t say anything when the lights went off and the show on stage began.

Everywhere I looked, Alora’s face shimmered. Everywhere I turned, her voice flowed in my ears. Everywhere I went, I could feel her soft hand in my own.

A hundred memories of Alora later, the lights came back on and Tarri shoved me out, stating she would close the bar by herself. I dragged my feet down the deserted streets, the pitch dark of the night having lured everyone to huddle inside their homes. Safe and sound. Not like Alora, her ashes probably used by the city as fertilizer or however they’d deemed to wring the most use out of them.

I was supposed to not exist right at this moment. Not her.

I strayed into the forest, but the low branches snagged on my uniform t-shirt, spiderwebs stuck to my nose, and my heavy steps mashed the rotting leaves dotting the forest floor. Fog haddescended, encircling my clearing as a protective wall, and my eyes watered. The field sought to hide from me—a vile creature formed out of betrayal and cruelness.

Humidity stole my body heat as I trudged to the center of the clearing. So much space surrounded me that I could practically hear it talking to me, its vastness slithering up my legs and waist, its tentacles forcing themselves into my throat and tearing me from the inside out.

The first teardrop trickled down and fell into the small hole the tip of my boot had dug out between the dewy blades of grass. Starlight rained down on me, stripping me bare, and I choked. The gods weren’t laughing at me tonight. They were flickering in white steadily, a defensive rhythm of sorts, a shield.

They were disgusted by me.

My knees buckled, and I collapsed on the ground. My head dropped low as sobs wracked my lungs and tears scorched my cheeks.

Alora was dead.

Because of me.

Because of my treachery.

Which she’d never revealed to anyone. Had taken my secret to the grave.

Only she didn’t even have that.

My fists curled at my sides, and I screamed at the grass glistening with tomorrow’s dew, serving as a sign that it would never come. At the night, so quiet, as if all life had vanished. At the sky, so far away, yet crushing my chest so hard it felt like it was crashing onto me.

I thought cold blood coursed through my veins, but now it burned, it burned so painfully the blaze was consuming me inch by inch. Alora had been erased from the face of our world, and I pleaded with the gods to take me with her. To incinerate myheart, to turn me into a flame, so I could reach for the stars and settle in the darkness between them with her.

Crunch.

I flinched at the harsh sound of a branch snapping somewhere in the tree line. Scrubbing at my damp cheeks, I stood up, oblivious to the mud clinging to my knees. I had told both of them to leave me alone.

“Hey, beautiful.”

I spun around, blinking away the wetness clouding my eyes.

“I didn’t take you for a quiet one. Or am I so good-looking that you’re at a loss for words?” His crooked smile stirred my nausea. “Please, do take a look.” As he spread his arms wide, dread settled in my bones. Black cargo pants and a dark green, skintight shirt covered his slender form. Ilasall’s military.

“I’m who you’ll serve once we return to the city,” he said as he removed the two knives from their sheaths and tossed them aside.