And then, he staggers forward, falling to his knees beside Will. “No,” he whispers. Then louder. “No.”
His voice breaks, then shatters completely. A sound escapes him, a low, wounded sound. Like something feral.
Not human.
Not quite.
I’ve never heard anything quite like it—the desperate, anguished noise that comes from Kai. It’s not loud, more like a cry of the soul.
He curls in, forehead pressed to Will’s chest, his shoulders shaking, and I don’t know if he’s sobbing or screaming or both. I don’t know if there’s a difference anymore.
Because there’s no control left in him. Nothing but rage, grief, andfire.
His hands fist into Will’s shirt, smearing more blood across already ruined fabric. He shakes him once, twice. And then he leans his forehead to Will’s and stays like that.
Two boys. Heads touching.
One breathing. One not.
And in that moment, it is impossible to tell which one of them the world has truly lost.
Then Kai pulls back, just enough to see Will’s face, and he reaches down, finds Will’s hand, the one streaked in blood, fingers slack, already cooling.
He takes it in both of his. And then, with a tenderness that rips something open in me, Kai lifts Will’s hand to his mouth. He presses his lips against the back of it, eyes shut, holding on desperately.
When he lowers it again, he doesn’t let go. He just holds it, cradled in his, as if he intends to sit there forever.
I wonder, for a moment, if he will.
And in my head, I say it, because I can’t make myself say it out loud.
Goodbye, Will Carson.
The sun rose today, and it shouldn’t have.
***
When he lifts his head, everything shifts. His eyes sweep the garden, across the bloodstained ground and to me. His eyes land on my face, wide and wet and stricken, and I watch something flicker there, something faint. But it vanishes quickly, as his eyes slide past me.
To her.
Paris.
She’s standing just beyond the lights, her posture stiff, her hands curled into fists at her sides. She’s not crying. Not anymore. But she looks like she wants to be.
His eyes turn on her, barely perceptible, but I feel that slow, terrible ignition behind his stare. Like gasoline crawling toward a match.
Like something inside him starts to burn.
“Kai…” Paris’s voice breaks the deafening quiet, trembling and desperate.
But she should not have said his name. Because he knows.
Heknows.
He doesn’t know everything, but he knows enough. He knows what she’sdone.
His body contorts violently, and his face twists—eyes wide, something flickering and frantic pulling across his features. There’s disbelief, yes. But more than that, there’s something else.
