Page 184 of Eternal Ruin

“You can relax.” Arin’s curved smile was less menacing. “I won’t kill you.”

“No, you probably have something worse planned.”

Arin didn’t deny it, her painted lips arched.

Kidan’s guard rose higher. “Why are you helping me?”

Once they reached ground level, Arin lifted a lever to unlock a stone door. The room was dark and damp. Ominous.

Iniko blocked Kidan with an extended hand, stopping her.

“Answer the question,” Iniko demanded.

Arin raised a perfect brow, sprinkles of rain on her dark skin. “Why am Ibringing her to a vampire that hasn’t fed in months? Come now, Iniko. I taught you better than that.”

A wicked smile spread along Arin’s face. They both moved into a fighting stance at the same time, to the same tune, like skilled dancers. Iniko and Arin grabbed her. Kidan gasped as claws dug into her flesh. She was pulled apart, but her left arm, the one Arin held on to, gave in to the wrench. A shove to Kidan’s chest robbed her breath, blurring her vision. Gravity slipped out from under her and she fell inside the room. Before she even hit the concrete, the door was slamming shut, the lever locking.

Disoriented, Kidan slowly rose to her feet, trying not to panic. There was a window or an opening that allowed in some light and continuous rain to wet the floor but most of the space was dark.

“GK?” Kidan called into the shadows, squinting. Her voice echoed, telling her the room was quite large. She blinked away the water collected in her lashes, noticing a figure under the window.

She jerked to a sudden stop.

A damp boy sat in black clothes, a finger bone chain dangling from his fingers. Dark eclipsed eyes stared right at her.

Kidan nearly swayed, trying to parse reality from dream. He sat still as the spitting rain hit him at an angle, not moving an inch.

GK.

She took a sudden step toward him, ears drumming and curled her fingers to stop herself from hugging him.

“Are you real?” His voice was a rasp, dry as bone. “Or are you still haunting me?”

Tears pricked her eyes. Kidan sank to her knees, taking in the shadows above his hollow cheeks.

“I’m real,” she whispered. “I’m here.”

His transformed, otherworldly eyes shifted, and she saw it all—the raw power streaking along his pupils, the hatred that’d extinguished the reflective nature of his humanity.

“Kidan.” There were anger and betrayal in his stripped voice. “How could you, Kidan?”

Her fingers drew a square against her thigh. But nothing could save her from this. Kidan’s mouth clamped up at the loathing in those eyes. Similar to when he’d accused her of killing her foster mother.

She hung her head. “I’m so sorry.”

His chains clicked as they moved.

That sound. She’d missed it so much.

GK stood slowly, supporting himself on the wall, and staggered to her. Kidan didn’t move as he towered above her. An angel statue with the face of the devil.

Kidan shook her head, desperate to return his face to the kindness she knew well. Small tears slid down her cheeks. “I’m sorry for all of it. Slen and Yusef made a mistake. None of us were thinking clearly. The 13th, Dranacti, it twisted us up. When I found out, I—I nearly killed them. You were so good to us, GK. To me. They shouldn’t have—”

“It’s not them that destroyed me,” he said, slicing at her, gaining strength by the second. “We sat together in the Mot Zebeya Courts and I told you. I told you how evil death transformation was. How cursed we would be, more bloodthirsty, more violent. You knew this… and yet you made me into this.”

Kidan bunched her fists and let her tears drop. They mingled with the rain splattering on the floor.

“Look at me.”