“Better?” Sila asked.
“Quiet,” he snapped. “I’m trying to recall how awful the repercussions were that time we were fifteen.” Trapped in his own skin. For days. He shuddered and made a face. “Nope, not going to hit you. Not worth it.”
“So glad we could come to that conclusion,” Sila said, then, “What if I asked him?”
“What?”
“I asked this Imperial to pay my tuition.”
Rin tensed. “Don’t get involved with the Devils. That’s a rule, remember?”
“You broke it first, brother.”
“Not on purpose.”
“Irrelevant.” Sila rose and stretched, his movements languid, like a cat.
Very different from the tight and nervous way Rin carried himself whenever they were alone like this and they got to drop the act.
“Baikal Void and Kelevra Diar are dangerous,” Sila agreed. “But they aren’t a threat to us.”
“Oh yeah? You stay here and get hitched and I’ll take the ship back to Tibera then.” Rin rubbed at his temples. He’d been nursing a headache since Kel had tossed him to the floor.
“Neither of us is returning to Tibera,” Sila said, an edge slipping into his tone that he typically tried not to use. “Ever.”
“Hey, relax,” he held up a hand. “I was joking.”
“It was a shitty joke.”
“I’ll find a way to break this whole betrothal thing and then we’ll be back on track. Stick to the plan, right?”
A shutter dropped over his brother’s eyes, morphing his expression into an enigmatic one, and this time Rin did push.
“What was that?” He frowned. “We’re still sticking to the plan…right?”
“Free ourselves from our father.” Sila gave a sharp nod.
“…And get off this planet and find somewhere new where we can both be ourselves,” Rin added, watching him, waiting for his brother to agree. Only, he didn’t. “What the actual fuck is going on, man?”
“Don’t panic.”
“Fuck you!”
“Or get angry.”
“Again, fuck you!” Rin clutched at his hair and pulled it slightly, the burn to his already abused scalp—thanks to that other prick in his life Kelevra—helping to center him before he could completely lose it. “Explain. Right now.”
“I’m just not sure I want to leave. That’s all.”
“Don’t tell me you like Vitality?”
“You do, too,” Sila said. “We have friends, beds to sleep in…This planet has its appeal.”
Rin groaned and slammed his hands down on the bench, the thing almost collapsing beneath him. He hardly noticed, too pissed off and confused. Why was this the literal worst day ever?
“We fake our way through every day,” Rin stated. “Are you forgetting that part?” It was the whole reason they’d wanted to leave after graduation, to begin with. That had been the plan since they’d concocted this whole scheme back in middle school, huddled underneath the single ratty blanket their father had tossed them out the upstairs window when he’d locked them out for the night.
Again.
