“I said no, Peri.” I couldn’t control my breathing, and my hands shook at my side, dying to unleash electricity pulsing through me. I couldn’t and wouldn’t lose control around my sister. She was paramount to protect next to Gray. I wouldn’t hurt her.
Peri huffed. I could basically feel her crossing her arms over her chest with narrowed, determined eyes. “You don’t even know what I can help you with.”
I shook my head, immediately repulsed by the idea of her being put in harm’s way. “It doesn’t matter. You can’t be a part of this. It’s too—”
“Don’t you dare, Chrome,” she interrupted. “You don’t get to dictate my life. Otherwise, you’re no different from them.”
The fingers of silence crept around my throat, restricting my breaths as my sister’s words sunk in. I squeezed my eyes shut, forcing out the haunted memories of my stepfather. “I’m nothing like them.”
Soft footsteps sounded behind me, and I felt her aura brush against mine, but she didn’t touch me. “That’s not what I meant,” she sighed. “Just that you can’t keep me in a protective bubble forever.”
“Why not?” I asked, wholeheartedly meaning it. “As long as they think you’re under their thumb, they won’t hurt you. We can’t give them any reason to suspect you.”
“They won’t, Chrome. Would you just trustme? For once?”
Pangs of guilt twinged the strings in my heart, realizing that it was me who always demanded trust but never the other way around. Peri always trusted and listened to me, and I never granted her the same respect.
I inhaled, slowly releasing it. With a nod, I turned to face my sister. She was only a year younger than me at fifteen years old, but all I saw was the baby sister I played with as a child, the little girl I would play a song to at bedtime on the violin to help her doze off to sleep, and the loyalty she gave me to keep me safe.
I studied her hopeful warm eyes, the soft cheekbones, and the long periwinkle waves of her hair. “What is it you can help me with?”
In surprise, her eyes widened. “Oh…uhm.” Her gaze drifted around the training room as if searching for the words to ask me. “The Endarkened. I can help try to find out whether Endarkened are being held in the prisons.”
An hour passed in the training room as I sat beside my sister, my knees bent and arms draped over the top. It was themost we’d talked in months. It stung, realizing how much time I’d missed out on with her. I didn’t even know what had been going on in her life lately.
“Remember that time I tried to wrestle you when I was seven, and you let me beat you?” Peri asked, a wistful smile on her face.
With a chuckle, I nodded. “Of course. You were so insistent that you could win. I couldn’t break your heart to show you otherwise.”
The soft giggle she released was another reminder that I hadn’t heard her genuine laugh in far too long. How did we get here? We used to be so close as siblings, never having any resentment or negativity between us. We saw ourselves as each other’s protectors in our own unique ways since we were the only true family we had. Now, we hardly saw each other unless it involved late-night secret conversations in my room to form a lie to keep our parents in the dark about my plans.
“Well, teach me something new.” The smirk she sported said she was up to something.
I narrowed my eyes in suspicion. “What do you mean? In sparring?”
“Yeah. Like the old days, remember? So no big bad Kinetic boys can fuck with me.” One side of her mouth slid higher. Visions of me beating the shit out of the guy, Kinetic or otherwise, who touched her powered through my mind.
“You don’t have any boyfriends, do you?” I asked. “Fuck, who do I need to beat—”
“Fucking gods, Chrome. No!” Peri laughed, rising to her feet and tossing her long hair up into a bun. “Not yet anyway,” she taunted. “Come on. Make me formidable so I don’t have to come to my scary, legendary brother whenever a man thinks he has the right to touch me.”
I stood up after her, angling my neck from side to side, the joints popping as I did. “You better come to me for that.”
“I’d rather be able to protect myself, Chrome. Not have to depend on someone else to do it for me,” my sister argued.
“Of course. Which is why I’ll teach you. But once you’re done with them, come to me, and I’ll make them wish they were dead.”
Peri had never been a fighter, and like Gray, she was seen as too delicate and precious to be put through training. My mother and Grim refused to risk her life for any such activities despite the fact it went against everything we stood for. But it didn’t stop her from wanting to learn the basics from me over the years in the event she needed to protect herself. And I was more than happy to give her the tools necessary.
Peri thought over my words as she chewed on her cheek. “Fair enough.”
With a grin, I felt lighter than I had since I kissed Gray out on the rooftop. Everything that had happened in the month since had been hovering over me like the most poisonous cloud that demanded to infect every cell of my body.
“Okay, I’m gonna teach you how and where to headbutt a man,” I said, walking closer to her, imitating a male invading her personal space by getting nose-to-nose with her.
“And if I can’t reach due to height restrictions?”
“Then I’ll show you where to punch for a liver shot. That’ll give you a chance to knock them out cold.”
