Kai winced. “Boxes Romy ticks too.”
“Goddess, Kai. I get it.” I exhaled. “You’re obsessed with Romy.”
“IloveRomy,” Kai snapped, jabbing a finger into my chest. “If I had the ability to tear the walls of this realm down with my bare hands just to find her, I would. Imagine, just for a second, how powerless you might feel if you knew you weren’t able to do the one thing you feel gives you purpose in life? It’s soul destroying.”
His words struck me like a bolt to the chest.
“Then forgive me for not understanding those dynamics between you and Romy,” I said, really trying my best not to sound sarcastic. “But you weren’t exactly a big talking point. Love is a strong word to use for someone I didn’t know existed.”
His eyes narrowed, forcing the tears to fall down his cheeks. “You have no idea. And you are not in any position to dismantle how I feel, Hector. Got it?”
I shook my head. “If it helps, I love Romy too, in a very platonic kind of besties way. There is nothing more I want than to make sure she survives. Trust me. But for that, we alsoneedto find a way out of this trial before our bodies shut down. That doesn’t mean we can’t look for her, I just think we need to also look for the exit at the same time.”
Kai took in my words, chewing them up and testing how they tasted. Honest, or another lie. “Is that why you asked her to convince me to forfeit the Witch Trials?”
Oh, so shedidmention it.
“Oh, is that why you are pissed at me?”
Kai’s expression softened, hands relaxing from their tense fists. “I’m pissed at everything, not just you.”
Hope swelled in my gut. “Then I gather from the fact you’ve not told me that you won’t leave the trials, means you are still thinking about it?”
My hope was shattered with a single word.
“No.”
“No?”
“We tried and it didn’t work. This morning, just before Romy woke you. She asked me, and I said I’d only leave with her. She agreed, although I could tell that wasn’t what she really wanted. But when we said the words, both of us, in tandem, Bahmet refused.”
Every ounce of heat left in my body vacated like an evicted tenant. “What?”
“We asked to leave, Bahmet said no.”
My blood boiled in my veins.
He nodded, looking out across the endless expanse of grave-sites in search for something. “Bahmet’s response to our request was to start this trial. It’s like we evoked him, or the request elicited a punishment for even thinking that previous rules to the Witch Trials would ever be upheld now the curtain has been pulled back on the truth.”
“Shit,” I spat, feeling the sudden urge to hurt something overcome me. “Fucking shit!”
I spun around, boot arching as I kicked it towards a gravestone. The tip cracked, the bones in my foot shuddering from the impact. It was a surprise when something didn’t feel like it was broken, so I kicked it again and again.
Pain. That was what I wanted to use to dampen all my other feelings. But the more I kicked the slab, the clearer my understanding became.
I wasn’t even deserving of the release of pain like I wanted, for evenitevaded me.
“Hector,” Kai said my name, this time with an ounce of kindness to it. “Maybe it’s best you don’t piss off the dead, yeah?”
Considering my kicking of the undeserving gravestone wasn’t giving me what I wanted, I gave up. Breathless, and onthe verge of tears, I turned slowly back around. “I know we haven’t seen eye to eye, Kai. But believe me when I say I have yourbestinterests at heart. I might not have known about you before, but not even Romy’s silence about your… past can dull just how important each of you are to one another. I wanted you to leave, with Romy, because it was one sure way of keeping you safe. So, me picking you for this trial is my way of ensuring that. No matter what happens, youwillmake it out of this trial. And the next. I swear that to you.”
Kai blinked, expression hardening all but his forest-green eyes. “Are you trying to convince me, or yourself?”
“A little bit of both.” I stumbled over a laugh, which surprised me. “Trust me, I’m far from giving up. I know what I want from this, and even if it ruins me, I will get it.”
“Winning the trials, you mean?”
I didn’t have a straight answer for him. Fitting, considering being or doing anything straight was practically against my personality now.
