“You tried to run from me. First, on the roof in the city. Then, you jumped out of Zion’s car and bolted into this forest to hide.” His nose skimmed my temple, and a hum fluttered from my chest. “Except there is not a place on this planet I would not upturn to find you.”
Instinctively, I gripped his wrist. “I didn’t do it to escape you.”
His low chuckle curled my toes. “This reminds me of the first time you approached me. Remember? At the end of last summer, when you spotted me in the forest? Your punches were weak, but the strength shining in your eyes was unparalleled. But all it took for me to break your shield was leaving a mark on your neck with my teeth. Coloring it in blues and purples, reds and yellows. Sending you back to the city with a message spelled in bruises—mine.”
My tears sprang out, both from the sensation of him pressed against me and the reminder of the night we’d met. How everything had changed since then.
How callouses had formed in my soul, and howfeelingGedeon now was like a razor shaving the hardened skin off of me, one slice at a time.
It hurt.
It hurt so much.
I shoved my elbow into his solar plexus, right where Zion had taught me. Gedeon bent over, clutching his stomach, but when his gaze met mine, amusement danced in it.
“Yours or not, Gedeon, but it was my knife that bled you. I thought I’d killed you.” I stumbled backward, away from him, away from the realization he’d pulled through, yet had left Zion and I alone to deal with his supposed death. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
I scrubbed the wet paths streaking my face, disregarding how the metal buckle on my jacket’s sleeve pinched my skin. The sting was nothing compared to the suffocating heat of the bonfire I’d sat at twelve weeks ago. “Imournedyou. I burned my words for you in your funeral fire. We had all assumed you weredead.”
I threw my head back. Tears singed a path across my temples, soaking into the mess of my sweaty hair and shooting straight to my chipped heart. The stone cage encasing the organ couldn’t contain the fluctuating beats seeking to disintegrate it.
“Zion told me you were gone. And I don’t mean the lie about the city’s prison we both spread around. He said you were”—I swallowed—“not with us anymore.”
Gedeon’s heavy sigh cleaved me in two. His black clothing blended him with the night, as if they were one and the same.
My lips rolled into a tight line to keep a sob from escaping. “He knew? You told him and not me?” I sniffled and quickly wiped under my nose. All this time, Zion had glued me back together whenever I broke or lashed out, but he’d known thesecret all along. “Am I such a worthless object in your eyes that you couldn’t share the fact that you werealivewith me?”
“Do not dare repeat those words.Ever.” Gedeon prowled toward me. “Your worth had nothing to do with it. I had coerced him into swearing silence, but I couldn’t bring myself to do the same to you. I know how much a promise means to you. I could not bear loading a burden of a false one onto your shoulders.”
My lungs failed to work properly. “But it wasn’t your decision to make.”
He seized my throat. I jolted at the unexpected hold, clutching his arm pushing me backward until my back hit a tree. The rough bark caught my jacket, the friction locking me against the trunk.
He leaned in, close to my face. “Did you see my body? Did you incinerate it? Did you bury it in a grave, like our ancestors used to do?”
“No,” I croaked out, but not due to him immobilizing me. My body welcomed Gedeon’s hand, as though it needed it like water. To survive. “There was nothing left of you.” After I’d run away, Zion had told me he took care of Gedeon’s remains. I hadn’t had the courage to question him.
“Exactly.” Gedeon’s nostrils flared. “It was a trick, Kali. A ploy to unite our people underyourrule, yours and Zion’s, with me serving as bait. A tactic to coax everyone into marching to war.” A bitter laugh vibrated in his chest. The sound of it was neither demeaning nor leaking disdain—it carried notes of defeat. “They are all a herd. Or an army, as you like to call it. And what happens when the enemy captures their leader? They run after him in hopes of getting him back. Because as people, as a nation, we are nothing without control. Freedom cannot exist without it. You cannot be free if there are no limitations. The concept of liberty would cease to exist. And was that not whatyou sought? To annihilate the cities, starting with Ilasall? To reduce their population control methods to ashes?”
The clouds parted, revealing a crescent moon. Its silvery light caressed Gedeon’s forehead, his swelling jaw from my punch back on the roof in Ilasall, the glistening bottom lip as fluffy as the brewing clouds, sculpted just for my?—
No.
His free hand came to grip my hip, and his thumb dug into my flesh. “I did this for you, Kali. So you would have better chances of winning. I increased the probability of your preferred outcome. Instead of our people splitting into factions, they all bend at your will now.”
“Then why did you return?” I leaned into his hold on my throat, obstructing my breathing in the process. “Why not stay away from us? If you were so intent on tormenting us, Gedeon, why did you come back?” I screamed into his face, inches from mine.
His smile turned icy, as did his reply. “Because I could not stay away from you.” An assertion. A claim. “You and Zion.”
“Unbelievable,” I muttered, shaking my head as much as I could in his hold. “You followed us back because Irecognizedyou. Not because you needed us.”
“If that were true, I would have returned weeks ago. You both have spotted me countless times.” He pushed his knee between my legs, trapping me against the tree. “I feared your neck was going to snap from how fast you twisted toward me in the valley of that mountain.” His satisfied chuckle coiled in my pelvis, right where it belonged. “And I’m certain Zion had noticed me hovering behind the kitchen window when I watched you push around your pancakes this morning.”
16
KALI
He’d been stalking us. Watching from afar.
