Page 95 of Fragile Facade

“It’s like we’re listening to the same song and hearing different lyrics,” he muses.

“Same lyrics. Different meanings.” I like the way his arm feels around me, so I pretend not to notice it there. “What song are we listening to now?”

“You could play us one,” he suggests.

“We could play one together.”

Killian goes tense. Music makes him uncomfortable because he doesn’t know what his sounds mean. He can’t manipulate, interpret, or influence it, so he steers clear of it because it’s a better opponent than he is. It bests him every damn time, and he’s sick of losing to it.

I pull him deeper into the woods, almost within sight of The Harpy’s cabin, and then I push my mask up. He doesn’t, so I do it for him. “What’re you scared of?”

“Nothing.”

“Killian.”

He scoffs, shoving at my chest. “The fuck is this? We don’t talk. Not like this.”

“We talked the other night.”

“Yeah, about bullshit…yourbullshit.”

“Oh, so my bullshit is fair game, but yours isn’t?” I grab his hip and force him to stop pacing. “You don’t have anyone else you can talk to, so talk to me.”

“Fuck you. I have my brother.”

My turn to scoff. “Yeah? Like you’d ever willingly show weakness around him? Yeah, right. You have yourself built up as his hero because you feel like you failed him early on.”

He punches me. Right in the gut. I buckle over, eyes watering, wind knocked out of me, eyes staring at the grassy forest floor.

“Ididfail!” Killian seethes at me. “It’s the last time I ever let myself fail, so fuck you for bringing it up. Like you’ve never failed.”

“I failed two brothers and a dad already,” I shout at him, standing upright despite the pain. “You think I’m too full of myself to know that?”

“Yeah, I did, actually.”

We stare, unstable because we’re supposed to be mad, but it’s taking too much energy to stay that way. Embarrassment kills me, and failing my brothers is one of my greatest catastrophes. I’ve never said it aloud until tonight, and with Killian as the only one who heard it, I feel safe while insecure. Trapped in the truth but allied with him because he admitted fault, too. I failed my brothers, and that’s my reality. But instead of it feeling terrible because I lost them, it feels terrible because I wasn’t strong enough to save them. Failure is failure, and…

“I almost failed you,” I whisper against the wind, hoping it carries that confession away. Straightening, I don’t look at him until he breathes loudly. His eyes are soft but surprised, full of questions he doesn’t want to ask.

“In Reaper City?”

“Yeah.” I look away, trying to see the moon through the leaves.

“Soren.” He grips my chin and turns me to face him. “You didn’t fail me. I did that.”

He told me he needed me to get out, but I’ve never asked why, and I don’t know if I’m ready for the answer.

He answers anyway. “Just in case,” he says. “Just in case you died trying to save me. Just in case it was your only chance to get out. Just in case it was the last thing you ever saw me do. Just in case.”

Just in case…

The meaning of those three words pounds in my chest, and Killian grabs his like he can feel my heart pounding there. Our eye contact is as sketchy as it always is, but there’s a new defiance to it. Something strong and feeble, like it’s willing to be there if we let it. It’s a connection, and I’m so goddamn desperate to latch onto it that I force myself to blink so that I don’t. But blinking doesn’t wash it away like it usually does.

Just in case…

What the fuck does it mean?

I know what it means…