Her lips are full and soft from my kiss, and I can't stop staring at them.
She shifts in her seat, her hands twisting in her lap.
"Sorry you had to see me kill someone," I say. "That kind of thing bothers most people."
She looks over at me.
"I'm not most people."
No. She's not.
Most people don't survive what she's survived. Most people don't walk back into the place that tortured them just to help a man they barely know get revenge.
Most people don't kiss like she did.
The silence stretches between us, thick and heavy.
I should let it go. I should start the car and drive us back to the estate and lock her in that room and forget this ever happened.
But I know I'm not going to do that.
Instead, I start the engine and pull back onto the road.
I don't tell her what she is to me now.
I only know one thing with absolute certainty.
Whatever this is, whatever line I crossed tonight, no one else is touching her.
And I've already decided she isn't going anywhere, whether she knows it yet or not.
26
ZARIA
Callum turns back onto the main road, and neither of us speak.
The warehouse, the candles, the chanting, the blood, it all disappears into the night like it never happened.
The dashboard lights glow soft blue. The windshield is like a black mirror reflecting our silhouettes. His hands are steady on the wheel and controlled, knuckles pale where his grip tightens at random moments, like he's wrestling his own thoughts into submission.
I stare out the window and try to breathe normally.
It doesn't work.
My mind keeps replaying the kiss like it's a command I can't disobey.
Like it didn't just split something open inside me.
The way his hand gripped the back of my neck. The way his mouth crashed into mine like he needed me to kiss him back or he'd stop breathing.
And I did.
I kissed him like I'd never kissed anyone before. Not because I had to. Not because someone told me to. Not because it was part of a ritual or a punishment or a transaction, but because I wanted to.
It was supposed to be acting. It was supposed to be a cover, a lie, a trick to keep us alive.
But I wasn't acting.
