Page 169 of Cold-Blooded Creatures

“Enough rest. We’re moving onto your glutes.” I indicated for Kali to roll. “On your back, arms at your sides, your knees bent.”

She blew a frustrated breath, but picked off the tiny rocks that had stuck to her cheek and did as she was told.

“Now lift your hips up, then your lower back, then your upper back. Like a wave. Then lower everything down in reverse,” I instructed. “Exhale when you go up, and inhale when you go down.”

Eislyn joined her, but with one leg raised straight and raised a few inches off the ground.

Kali groused, “How are you so good at this?”

“It took some time.” Eislyn switched her legs. “This is child’s play for me now.”

Refastening the button that had popped on her coat along her swollen belly, Malaya asked Kali, “Why didn’t you join the training groups? Jayla said Ava was teaching newcomers.”

“Because I don’t want them to pity me,” she gritted out. “They can spare their sympathy, for all I care.”

That was exactly the reason everyone was here. Kali had seen something in Malaya to save her, so I’d gotten Jayla to convince her to come here together with Eislyn, so Kali could train surrounded by people who had or were recovering from their past lives. Because once life had knocked you down to the bottom of your personal hellhole, you could try to claw your way out, but you were never going to be the same.

And I didn’t trust everyone who participated in group training. We had a rat among us, and I wasn’t chancing our luck. A small group with the prattling but harmless Jayla, heavilypregnant Malaya, and trustworthy Eislyn was working well enough, and I could monitor Kali’s progress myself.

“That’s enough,” I said, and passed a couple of steel bottles to her and Eislyn. “Drink some water while you take a break.”

Kali re-tied her high, messy bun to hide the loose strands, bringing my attention to the deep purple bruise marring her neck and the bluish ones dotting her upper arm, and unscrewed the bottle’s cap. “What happened?”

“What do you mean?” I scratched my chest harshly, savoring the tiny prickles shooting up my nerves. I had to do something to placate my boiling insides. The hues of her bruises had coaxed my fury to rise back to the surface. And pain had always steadied me. Only not necessarily mine.

“You’re different.” She lifted the hem of my dusty t-shirt she was wearing and wiped the sheen of sweat off her forehead. “Less insane. Calm.”

“Is it good?”

“It’s…unsettling.” Her eyebrows dipped into a deep vee. “What’s wrong? What did you do?”

“Someone.” I grinned and laughed at her groaning. Kali didn’t know yet that it was because I’d finally gotten through to Gedeon, because she finally resembled herself today, and not the shell she’d been the last few days. Things had changed. “Now stand up. We have five days to teach you the basics of balance training, or Gedeon will give us a different lesson.”

54

GEDEON

Kali stuffed her hands in the pockets of Zion’s leather jacket she had pulled on top of my black sweater and t-shirt. “Where are we going?”

I opened the hallway door for her to pass into the stairwell. “You will see.”

Scowling, she wobbled down the stairs, refusing to take a break the five times I proposed it. Her muscles obviously hurt from how her thighs quivered with each step and how she had to use the wall to keep her balance. It strained my patience to keep myself from carrying her downstairs.

Kali had been training with Zion so stubbornly the past week that we had to physically drag her out of the training rings to make sure she got some rest. She would not give up going through the exercises despite crying the next morning from overstrain.

“So will you tell me?” She glowered at me in the street, the light pouring out of the windows casting our shadows on the sidewalk and walls.

I extended my palm to her. “Do you trust me?”

“You know I do.” She laced our fingers, and I let her dictate the distance between us as we navigated the streets towardthe training rings where Zion and the rest awaited. We had considered doing this in the clearing she used to wander often to, but I doubted she was anywhere near ready to go back there yet. The messenger had desecrated her safe place.

“Look up.” I pointed upward as we strolled along the edge of our compound, not many stores or residential buildings in sight, mostly just irreparable ruins lining the maze of our streets.

Bright stars dotted the midnight sky, their shimmers like snowflakes on those rare winter nights.

“It’s—” she choked.

“Beautiful.” Silver glimmered on her skin like armor, a layer of protective plating she had forged to survive.