I swallow shards of glass with thenothat leaves my mouth. And I cry. Quiet sobs while he rubs my back.
And I hate how the touch comforts me, like it always has. But even worse is the warmth that travels down my spine and around to my core. Because it’s Kelter. And I don’t want him like that. My body is out of control, my emotions in no better shape.
“Are you Emerson?” I ask, giving in to the nagging question on top of everything else. “Did you kill a little girl?”
He lifts my head and looks into my eyes with all those colors in his, gently clasping my neck with two hands.
I suck in a shallow breath. Maybe I should fear this man.
“Yes.”
I hold back the thousand questions trying to burst from me.
“But I need you to know I’m still me. I always will be,” he says. “None of this changes who I am.”
I nod.
Kelter lowers his shoulders, his guard. “She wasn’t just some girl. Her name was Allora, and she bit her nails when she got mad and cut holes in the knees of all her jumpsuits so they’d give her new ones. And she had a birthmark on the back of her hand that she rubbed while she listened in class. And her eyes were the kind of blue that made them the only thing I remember about her face.” He forces himself to continue with a slow breath. “It started with small creatures. I’d suck their blood after killing them. It kept me under control for years. But it all changed.”
He can’t stop there. “Keep going.”
He sighs, heavy lashes pulling his gaze down. “I was swimming in the lake with the other kids, and Allora climbed on my back. I still remember her laugh, how her hair stuck to my skin. How close I felt to her when I sank down onto my knees. Until her head was underwater. How I held her legs around me. How she tried to get away. I remember the scratches she left on my neck. The way she pulled my hair. How the other kids played, oblivious to the life I was taking. The bubbles that popped against my shoulder when she let her last breath go. I killed her. And I’d never felt so alive, so close to anyone before.”
I’m so alive after dying—my own thought, so many times over. Is it all that different from his?
A whole damn mountain crams its way into my throat. I force it down over and over, swallow after swallow, sharpening into precipices and cliffs. Until I can breathe again, as painful as it is. Until I can speak. And maybe I shouldn’t ignore the murder he just described, but I do. I turn to what I know, to fury. “Who the fuck choosesKelteras a fake name?”
He laughs, and it fades into a warm, freckle-framed smile. “Me, I guess.”
Feet shuffle outside the cave entrance. Fable sticks his head inside, a gut-grinding grin on his face and grimy hair that must repel water at this point.
Kelt smashes his body into me, knocking me to the floor and crushing me beneath him. “Can’t you see I’m busy?” He thrusts his hips against my balled-up figure, blocking me from Fable’s sight and letting him believe exactly as he intends.
But with all the feelings I’m fighting, this doesn’t help.
Kelter slams into me again, grunting and groaning, louder and louder until Fable leaves, satisfied with how he takes me.
And I can finally speak. “Get off me.”
He helps me sit up. “Sorry, are you okay? He was sent to watch us. I don’t want him to think he can take you away. Zandrite’s messed-up. He forces the Half Links to be with him whenever he wants.”
“Why would they choose this life?”
“It’s not fatal if your link dies, but it can feel like it. And it never gets better.”
I make squiggles in the dirt, avoiding his face. “Did he force you to be with him? Is that why he gave you a throne?”
“No. I’m an exception.”
“Why?”
Kelt puffs up his cheeks and lets the air whistle out slowly. “I guess he took a liking to me. That’s all.”
I sit with his obvious lie for a minute, letting it fester then setting it aside. “Why’d you do it, Kelt? Tell me why you killed her.”
He rolls his head back, staring at the dirt ceiling. “I have a physical need to connect. I was born with it, I guess. It’s in my blood, and it’s all I know. It builds up inside me until I’m rabid and can only be calmed with certain things.”
“Like what?”
