“Sorry.”
“No, you’re right. He put a clode implant in me.”
“Hewhat?” Dig lost his softness and subpoenaed anger. He dropped his hand from mine. “Hefuckingwhat?”
“He put clode in me.” I picked at my fingernails. “He’s after my inheritance. Making me Soulless means I have no rights now and I’m likely to die in prison or the next Execution Battle. He’s always been smart like that, knowing how to beat his opponents. I just… I just… never thought I was his opponent.”
My heart hurled into my ribs.
Something burned under my eyes.
“Oh.” Dig breathed out the words, wrangling his fingers though his hair, pulling at the roots and stepped away to digest what I had said. “Clode.”
The burning behind my eyes became inflamed.
Dig lost his concern and slapped his hands on the counter. “Wait, this means you’re not Soulless. Your heart is going to beat properly.”
“Well, no, it doesn’t.”
He placed his hand on my heart, searching for the thrashing beat. “It’s a little fast.”
I pushed his hand away. “Because I’m upset.”
“Princess.” He cupped my cheeks, pulling my face up to his. “Do you know what this means? Your heart is going to look for its Soulmate.”
“No, it won’t.”
“Of course it will.”
“I’ve probably had dump loads of clode in me for years, if you have it in you that long it messes with your hormones permanently. I’m Soulless. My heart will never beat for my Soulmate.”
Dig’s eyes widened, his lips turned down.
“It’s probably why I don’t feel anything.” I dug my nails into my palms and looked away with shame. “Why everything feels empty, why I can’t relate to people, why death is nothing, why I can’t… I can’t even cry! There is so much wrong with me.”
Dig looked at me the way a person does when they’re watching a burning building they can’t save.
That was me.
There was nothing inside left to salvage, nothing worthy, nothing beautiful. I was charred, ruined, a person who never bloomed.
“Come here.” Dig wrapped his arms around me and placed me in the safe harbour of his chest. “There’s nothing wrong with you.”
“There is, Dig.”
“Show me all the parts of yourself you don’t love, so I know where to begin.”
“I’m barely human.”
“Of course you’re not a human. You’re a goddess, a deity, you’re a dream. That’s what you are.”
I clung to him. It felt like I was burning, drowning, getting sawed in half. “I'm so sorry,” I said to him. “I'm so sorry I can’t be normal. I’m so sorry I can’t feel things like everyone else.”
“It doesn’t matter if you don’t feel anything,” he said, pressing his lips to the top of my head. “You don’t need to feel anything.I don’t need you to feel anything. We can be like this, for all time. Just you and me, that’s all that matters.”
He deserved more than this. My belly swirled with dread, my lower lip quivered, that burning behind my eyes became scorching and a raindrop slid from my eye and down my cheek.
“What?” I whispered, reaching up to touch the little droplet of water.
