Betrayal.
He stares at her like he’s looking at a stranger. Like the last tether holding him together just frayed. His jaw locks, and I see the twitch in his cheek, the sudden stillness in his shoulders, like his entire body is trying to hold something back that’s already breaking free.
“You?”
That’s all he says. Just one word. One syllable.
But it’s enough. Enough to confirm what he suspects by the look on Paris’s face.
“Kai,” she tries again. “I can explain—”
But he’s already shaking his head.
Once.
Slowly.
One second, Kai is on the ground, his hand still clenched around the fabric of Will’s ruined shirt.
The next, he’s gone. And when I turn, breath caught in my throat, he’s already in front of her.
Paris doesn’t even have time to move.
He towers over her, motionless at first, just looking. Staring down at his old friend, who he has helped, who he has cared for, now looking at her with bitter disgust.
“I-I didn’t kill him,” she stammers, voice small and broken.
But Kai’s face—god, his face—doesn’t soften.
It curdles.
His mouth twists into something that might have once been disbelief but is now something else entirely. A storm. Fury, loss, betrayal.
Just things I can identify straight away, amongst other things.
“You might as well have,” he says, and it doesn’t even sound like him anymore. It’s too quiet. Too flat. A voice stripped of warmth and turned into something lethal.
Paris shakes her head, choking on her breath, and takes a step back. “I didn’t mean—”
But he’s already reaching for her.
His hand wraps around her arm, tight, and he slams her back against the wall of the house so hard the boards rattle.
“You sly, conniving littlebitch,” Kai hisses, his forehead nearly pressed to hers, eyes wild.
Paris gasps, but she doesn’t fight. She just sobs, her entire body shaking now. “I didn’t m-mean for this to happen! He wasn’t supposed to b-be h-here!”
“Do you know what he was to me?” Kai’s voice is shaking now, cracking open. “Do you haveanyidea what you’ve taken?”
“I was just trying to help!” Paris cries, her back still pinned against the wood siding. Her voice cracks apart. “Everything I ever did, I did foryou. For us. For our families—”
“Help?” The word is a snarl as it leaves him, and he reels back a few inches. “Terrorising an innocent girl. Being the reason three people are dead. That’s your idea ofhelping?”
Paris’s eyes widen, genuine shock flickering across her face. At the confirmation that he’s realized. But it only lasts a second,then it drains out of her, like she remembers who she’s talking to.
“I didn’t mean for Wren to die,” she says, quieter now, voice trembling. “I didn’t mean for Will to—”
“Don’t.” His hand flashes up again, pressing just slightly against her throat.
