Kelter’s face pinches with disgust. “And I know every pathetic childhood memory of him wondering why so many kids hated him, ran from him. Every past. Every lover. Every hand fuck in the shower.Everything.”
I almost feel bad for him, but the sting of it all is too new, too sharp. And the anger too familiar to let go of. I find Eli’s hardened face. “And you have memories of his past too?”Of the day we met? Of movies and coffee and hikes?
“No. Only from after this happened.”
“So Kelter has all your memories from every lifetime, and you only have the new ones he makes?”
“Ever, I know you’re mad,” Kelt cuts in, his more golden eye gleaming brighter today, sappy notes in his words.
“Mad does not even capture the fury in the tip of my fucking pinky finger.”
“I’ll take him out,” Eli offers.
“You don’t touch Kelter,” I say, coercing my tone into a threat.
Eli scoffs. “He lives only because I choose not to sit on his face until he takes his last ball-scented breath.For now.”
I fist the blanket. “You’re lucky you stillhaveballs after what you’ve put me through.”
“I don’t think you could part with them at this point,” Eli says, cupping his crotch. “You’re obsessed.”
“Ugh.” I grab my hair in fistfuls. “I need to get out of this room.”
Kelter glances up at Eli’s expressionless face and back to me,unease etched in the lines across his forehead. “I was wrong to bring you here. Let me take you back to Caldera. I’ll return alone.”
“You brought her to me in exchange for sneaking you into Sonnet,” Eli says. “What makes you think I’d let you take her back without me?”
“Because it’s the safest place for her. And her home.”
Eli’s stare stabs into me. “I’mthe safest place for her.”
Fuck.
I don’t even know if I’ll come out of all of this alive. If he’s so intent on fixing the mistake that he kidnapped me because an imaginary boy insistedIcould fix him, and the only remaining way to get my essence is by killing me, then what’s stopping him? Maybe hewouldkill me. He’s not sane. Neither am I. And I shouldn’t be thinking of his arms around me, the security I felt in them.
I hold my focus on Kelter, resisting the lure of Eli’s eyes. “Caldera’s not home anymore. My life was a lie. Our friendship was a lie. I don’t know who you are. Either of you,” I add with a cutting look at Eli. “Why did you leave Sonnet, Kelt? How did you end up across the border at eight years old when everyone here hates Calderans?”
Kelter’s head falls forward to the bed, sandy waves covering his arms. He speaks into the blanket. “My mother sent me to the shelter in Caldera. She said it was safer on the other side of the border.”
I smash my hands over my heart to keep it from tumbling into my lap. “You stayed in foster homes? Like me?”
“Not as many as you.”
“Because you were safer away from here?”Away from the beatings and torture?
“No.” Reluctance draws out the word. “Because Sonnet was safer without me.”
Chapter 3
EVER
I'm quiet for six seconds too long, enough time to feel the pulse of pain emanating from Kelter. “What do you mean?”
He lifts his head, a slow and steady rise, the bottom rims of his eyes red and swollen. “I can’t say. Not now.”
I reach for him, both compassion and bitterness in my intended touch, but Eli grips Kelt’s golden brown hair and jerks his head back, pulling him away from the bed.
“What the fuck, Eli?” I brace for Kelter’s retaliation, but he only smacks Eli’s arm and stands up.
