No, definitely not.
I bit my tongue to contain the lie.
Zion chuckled, and the rumble enfolded me like an embrace. “So we both like hisbackside.”
I threw my head back with a groan. But at the same time, his jokes were the best medicine there ever was. His frivolity served as a healing balm.
Gedeon wrung out the washcloth, and a stream of pinkish water pooled around his feet. Rubbing the bar of soap against the fabric, he glowered at me through the glass. “You’re just going to stand there too?”
“Mhm.” Pure wickedness numbed all the aches in my body as I drawled, “Turn around.”
Gedeon swiped the drenched strands off his face. “Why?
My smile widened. “So we can ogle you properly.”
“Do so at your own peril, little death. I have already warned Zion.” He snapped the cloth. “Once I’m out of this shower, it won’t take me long to catch you and make you pay for your insolence.” Twisting around, he purred, “For now, enjoy the view.”
Hundreds of tiny bird silhouettes decorated his back, not a patch of brown skin left uninked, the overflow of death marks crawling up his sides and nape.
The mass of animals resembled a flock caught in time: the birds tattooed right above his toned ass perched on the ground while their brothers and sisters soared the sky along the line of Gedeon’s shoulders.
Zion’s stomach growled, and he bit his fist, salivating at Gedeon. “I want to eat him.”
My giggle burst free. I clutched my core as flames razed my muscles, but the self-inflicted torture was worth it. It’d been gods knew how long since I last laughed so freely.
The pressure of the war I’d yearned for had ceased looming above me. The cities could no longer oppress us from afar. And nobody was going to experience Alora’s fate anymore.
A new century was about to begin with everyone on equal footing. How well you did in life would depend on each individual and their contributions to the society, not on the state of their reproductive organs.
My stumps pulsed, the phantom fingers smarting, and I had to glimpse at my hand to convince myself that the digits were truly gone. At least the pinkie the woman had removed had been the damaged one.
As wrecked as Ilasall.
We were scheduled to return to my homeland sometime in the next forty-eight hours, and I couldn’t wait to see the city I’d grown up in reduced to ashes.
85
KALI
My legs dangled off the edge of the temporary stage erected in Ardaton’s city square. Wind whipped my and Jayla’s hair, the ends of her fire-colored braids swaying as she surveyed the crowd filling the space to the brim.
Everyone had been ordered to gather here or at the largest crossroads set up with screens and projectors. Or allowed to watch the broadcast from their homes.
Home.
Such a curious word. It contained exactly four letters, but an innumerable amount of undertones. Of feelings. Of meanings.
Although a mere day had ticked by since we’d won the war, but already, countless Matches had split based on one partner’s wishes. Their apartments—homes—had been allocated to others.
For the first time in history, since the cities had walled up, the living spaces were assigned not according to the shade of your wristband, but your health and preferred gender to reside with.
“How long until they finish? I really need to pee,” Jayla whispered, not wanting to disturb the speech Gedeon and Damia were giving about the new laws and the judgment for the crimes Ardaton’s higher-ups had committed.
“They should announce the sentences soon,” I murmured, my thigh bumping against Jayla’s. The contact seared me, even through a pair of soldier’s cargo pants I’d found in the military barracks. Swallowing the lump in my throat, I patted her leg. “How’s Ava doing?”
Out of all our friends, not many had survived. Ava and Jayla were part of the few still standing.
If only they could restore my heart from the dust it’d disintegrated into.
