“You’re a heavy hitter.” I put my hand on his shoulder, and his muscles tensed. “We need you on the field. I’d rather have you fighting beside me than against me.”
He lifted his head, and I was sure my lungs had been crushed. The downward tilt of his eyes, the droop of his lips; it was pure defeat. His gaze landed on the scar on my hand, and his lips pulled into his teeth before he let out a long breath.
“That’s the problem with fire, Alex. It doesn’t matter what side you’re on—it burns everything to ash.”
I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. Nausea welled up, and the lilac scent from the candle in my room made it worse, made me think of Joon.
“Why didn’t you get it fixed?” his voice broke. “That scar—why do you still have it?”
It was an unintentional torture that I’d inflicted on him. I’d assumed Leo was used to it; I wasn’t the first person he’d burned and definitely wasn’t the last. After the healers had fixed me up as best they could, he retreated. The quips were still there; we were still forced into mock battles with each other, but it was like he forced himself to keep a larger distance.
It bothers him.
I cleared my throat and placed a hand over the red skin that his eyes were trained on. “I consider it a battle scar, actually. You’re strong, Leo. I wanted to remind myself that I could survive someone like you.”
His brows pinched, and his shoulders shot up to his ears.
“I don’t mean it in a bad way,” I sighed before holding my hand up with pride. “What I’m saying is that I can handle you. I can handle your fire. It doesn’t burneverythingto ash. I’mstill here. Joon got me out, but I could tell—you held back. You controlled it.”
Leo shook his head, and I could almost see a smirk starting to form. “Control is a big stretch.”
“Take the win, idiot.” I hummed before tossing a pillow at him. “Don’t get in your head.”
“Says the dreamer,” he drawled, and he was starting to come back to himself again.
His head was taller, his shoulders dropped, and his face relaxed.
“Well, do as I say, not as I do.”
Leo chuckled before locking his arms around his knees, turning his head to take in my room, scanning every inch of it. He finally landed on a picture on my dresser; it was of my graduation from the academy. Joon had his arm draped around my shoulders with a big, sloppy grin on his face. I beamed, and we were both flipping off the camera. At graduation, the VIA announced our rankings, and I was placed in third-class status.
Neither of us was surprised, but that didn’t stop us from shouting ‘fuck the system’ before the picture was taken. Joon claimed it was just the beginning; our origin story.
“Do you have any?” I asked, almost surprised that sadness hadn’t started to sink in. “Of your graduation, I mean.”
It wasn’t often that I could look at that picture without having to turn away.
Leo barked a laugh before rolling his shoulders. “No, definitely not. Joon did—he made us take one, but I didn’t want a copy. It felt pointless back then. I don’t do memorabilia.” His tone shifted as his lips pulled down. “I wish I did, though.”
“Whatcha readin’?”Reed peeked over my shoulder, a lollipop sitting in his mouth.
His fire-engine hair spiked on top of his head, still damp as a towel hung around his shoulders. I’d settled myself in one of the meeting rooms while Dahlia made plans for our visit to Connecticut, and the boys trained in the arena beneath headquarters. Leo hadn’t appeared yet; I wasn’t sure if he would at all. It was awkward between us. He’d exposed a part of himself that he wasn’t supposed to. I slept for two days after he’d caught fire, and Leo had to be treated by specialist healers with the VIA.
Dahlia told me that he was lucky I was around—if I hadn’t shut him down, he might have gone into full burnout.
I wanted to learn more, wanted to figure out who Leo was, instead of how he portrayed himself. Reed peered at me from the corner of his mismatched eyes. One blue, even more than mine, and one green. Reed was right—hewaspretty. The kind of beauty that would make people wonder if he was a model.
Joon was the same. The kind of face people admired. Thoughts of him used to hit harder, used to make my stomach clench and my breath wheeze. But lately, they felt like freedom. I smiled at Reed.
You’re Joon’s type.
The thought didn’t make me sick, or bring on the sense of missing out on what could have been. It brought back a memory, one where I could remember sitting on the floor together, books spread out around us. We always spilled secrets, created grand lives between ourselves, mapping out our future.
“I want someone interesting,” he’d said with a pensive look, as if he was deciding who he was going to marry, right thenand there. “Someone who always keeps me on my toes, that I can spot from a distance, you know? Someone I don’t want to take my eyes off of.”
“You have a thing for redheads,” I quipped when I flipped another page in my book.
He shrugged. “Hey, can’t fault a guy for having a type. You have one, too.”
