Page 49 of One Bad Knight

He walked to me and laid a hand on my shoulder. “I don’t know who this man really is to you, but you need to end it. You need to cut him out of our lives if you care for this family. I’ll talk to Jimi about being your date at the next function. He knows how to put on a good face and laugh things off. You and he can brush this off with elegance and just the right amount of levity.”

He squeezed my shoulder, letting me know our conversation was over. I barely remember slinking out of the study, but as soon as I cleared his office, I ran up toward my room. I took the stairs two at a time, emotion threatening to burst like an overfilled water balloon.

As soon as I shut the door behind me, I grabbed a pillow from my bed and shoved it into my face where I screamed and cried until my throat was raw and my face was puffy and swollen.

I’d been so selfish and stupid. I couldn’t even bring myself to turn my eyes upward to my mother’s mural. She’d be disappointed in me too.

19

Gatsby

When I snuck into Kat’s room, I found her asleep on her bed, above the covers.

I shucked my jacket and lay down next to her.

Her eyes cracked open into bloodshot slits. Her face and lips were puffy.

My brows knotted. Had she been crying? That wasn’t right.

“What’s wrong?” I whispered. I lay so close our noses almost touched, but inches separated our bodies. I sensed she needed space, though I instantly wanted to crowd in and wipe out whatever was happening by kissing and touching her.

She licked her full lips, as if trying to find her voice. It took several more swallows before she croaked out, “I embarrassed my family. I’ve acted like a rebellious brat. I can’t do it anymore.”

“Do what anymore?” I asked.

She studied me with such a serious expression, I almost wondered if I was supposed to already know the answer. “Choose you over them.”

I stiffened. She couldn’t know how ironic that statement was. She couldn’t know what I knew. How important it was for her to live for herself and not for her family.

Should I have pushed things so far, though? Had I been baiting the monster? Wanting to draw out a specific conclusion where I was Kat’s savior?

Stupid pathetic fool, I heard in Master Wu’s voice.No one would choose you for anything. You are the leftover scraps of greatness, and she would never choose you. Not even if you were the last person on Earth.

“You have to go,” she said next, before I could form a response.

“I can’t do that,” I said in a low voice.

She sat up, so I followed suit. “You keep saying I’m in danger. That something is coming for my soul. But apart from the She, and the pixies which I feel was more a situation of wrong place, wrong time, there has been a shocking lack of paranormal activity, Gatsby.” She ran a frustrated hand through her hair. “Is there even anything really coming for me?”

I licked my lips slowly, to buy time. “I believe so.”

“You believe so, but you don’t really know, do you?” she asked, getting up from the bed. “And based on a hunch, you are here turning my life upside down. I’m acting like a totally different person, because of you.”

“Maybe you are acting like yourself for the first time?” I suggested.

Maybe you are allowing yourself to want me because that’s what you really want.

“Gatsby.” She sighed, covering her stomach in that way she did when she needed to close herself off from everything. Then she dropped her arms and raised her chin. “I’d rather the demon come for me face to face, than hurt my family anymore.”

My body went cold where I sat, and I couldn’t move. “You don’t mean that.”

“That’s the thing. I do. I owe my family everything. Nothing in this world is more important to me than my family.”

I was on my feet in an instant, my hand gripping her arm. “Kat, you don’t need to sacrifice yourself for them.”

“I’m not sacrificing myself,” she said, shaking me off, and taking a step back. “I’m simply loving and supporting them the best way I know how. I know you can’t understand this, but it’s what I want. And you…” Her words faltered for a moment, but she regained her strength. “You need to leave, because you confuse me. You are making my life harder, and I need you to go.”

The words gathered on my tongue, begging to be let loose.