Page 163 of The Devil May Care

The forest shudders. The false Caz splinters, flickering in and out of existence like a broken projection. His smile tears across his face, lips and flesh peeling from bone like a horror movie or a bad acid trip. But I keep my eyes steady on his. And then…poof. He’s gone as fast as he appeared.

My feet feel rooted to the ground. No cabin. No Caziel. No heat pressed against my skin, no arms around my waist. Just the sound of leaves rustling like a whisper at the edge of a breath I haven’t taken yet. The world feels too quiet. My hands tremble as I press one to my chest, over the place where the pendant hums, steady now. Assured. It never stopped knowing what was real. I wish I could say the same.

I lower my head and breathe deep, filling my lungs. One inhale. Then another. The forest smells like shame and cold memory. Like something that should hurt but doesn’t anymore. I need to get myself moving, return to the arena, and face whatever comes next. But for one more second, I sit in the stillness.

“You don’t get to keep me here. I chose me.” I whisper to the trees, and this time the forest listens. The trees shift. Open. A path reveals itself, soft, moss-lined, and glowing faintly gold where the flame of Crimson welcomes me back. My legs shake, my chest aches, but I walk anyway, and I don’t turn back.

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

KAY

The forest doesn’t want to let me go. I feel it in the way the light shifts behind me, golden and green, soft and aching. The air hums like breath on my skin. A heartbeat ago, it offered me everything I’ve ever wanted, and I said no. That should feel victorious. It doesn’t. My boots hit the worn stone of the archway, and I swear it resists me. The world at my back pulses with want. I close my fingers tighter around the pendant at my chest. It’s warm from my body. Real. I remember that now. Crimson is real. Caziel is real. Pain is real.

I step forward and the world fractures. Light splits sideways, like glass catching flame. My stomach lurches. For a second, I think I’ll be sick and then I’m through, blinking into the mute light of the arena as my knees slam into the hard ground of the amphitheater. I land like a puppet with its strings cut.

Gasps echo above me. Distant, distorted. The crowd sees something, but it’s not me. I’m barely here. My hands tremble. The brands on my wrists glow faintly, pulsing in time with my heartbeat, or the Flame’s. I can’t tell anymore. Everything feels too close. My skin is too tight. I feel like I’ve been cracked open, scraped raw, then stuffed back inside a too-small shell.

They tried to take me. Not just with fear this time, or grief, but with want. With desire. With a lie that looked too much like the truth. My breath catches, and I drop my forehead to my knees, fighting for composure.

Get up.I tell myself,don’t fall apart here. Not here.

“Kay.”

Caziel waits just beyond the archway. Not fake. Not made of longing. Just him. I shut my eyes because this is almost worse. He is looking at me like I’m breakable again. Gentle, quiet, too careful, as if he thinks I’ll shatter if he breathes too hard. I might, actually, but I’m pissed he sees it too. The tenderness makes something cold flicker inside me.

I don’t want him to be gentle. I want him to be… normal. Blunt and maddening and clipped at the edges. I want him to roll his eyes or scold me for letting my guard down. Not stand there like I’m some fragile thing he doesn’t know how to touch.

“Kay,” he says, voice low.

I nod, too stiff, too hollow. “That’s my name, don’t wear it out.”

His mouth tightens at the corners. He hears the strain I did not mean to show. The words taste strange coming out. I don’t feel like me. I don’t know if I ever really did. I keep waiting for someone else to point it out. The silence stretches. I want to ask him what he sees when he looks at me, but I don’t trust the answer. I don’t trust anything right now. The forest stole that from me.

I search his face for signs. For anything that might flicker or change or shift into something false. But all I find is him. Real. Quiet. Tired around the eyes. Footsteps. Then warmth. His hand hovers over my shoulder. Not touching, waiting for permission. I give the faintest nod, and he sinks down beside me, slow and careful. Like I’m glass again.

“You made it.”

I shake my head. “Barely.”

The pendant pulses once in agreement. He notices it too this time, and I see the muscles in his jaw jump as he clenches his teeth.

“Viridian does not show mercy.”

“None of them do.”

He doesn’t argue and I finally lift my head to meet his gaze. Caz’s eyes are dark and steady, searching mine. There’s no triumph there. Just quiet. His hands are uncharacteristically busy. They push through his hair, flatten down the front of his coat. I can’t stop watching them. The same ones that held me—almost—and the same ones that didn’t stop, even when I asked.

It wasn’t him.

He’s watching me too, his eyes full of something soft and scared and a little bit lost. He doesn’t know what I saw, what I felt, and I’m not sure if I want to tell him. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

“Did they hurt you?” he asks.

“No,” I whisper, then correct myself. “Yes. But not like you think.”

He doesn’t push, and I’m grateful. The memory of what almost happened still burns under my skin, too fresh to explain. Too close to shame.

“I thought I was ready,” I say instead.