Fuming, I stomped down the streets. But the grayness of asphalt gradually morphed into the green of grass blades snagging on my loose shoelaces, and I trekked across the field, leaving the outskirts of our compound behind me.
Each lift of my boot felt like wading through water, but I pushed through, striding straight to Eli leaning against a budding oak, Eislyn nestled between his legs. Cross-legged, Amari and Tarri lounged on the navy-with-white-dots blanket. A selection of golden flowers graced the fabric between the two women with whom I’d tripped face-first into the snare of friendship.
With them, it was so easy, so simple. A kind word, a tub of ice cream to share, a shift at Vice together with Tarri or a training session with Amari, an evening of reading Eislyn’s horror romance books together, and all my troubles would vanish.
But whenever I looked at Gedeon, all I could think was: why was everything so complicated?
His return had changed everything. Before, he’d used to adore me, equate me to the gods, call me a goddess. And yet, he’d dropped Zion and me in hell, had left us to walk through the flames alone.
I’d given Gedeon every part of me, bymychoice, including my mind and heart, the former having been locked up, my sole possession for twenty-six years, and the latter having been encased in a stone cage, one Gedeon and Zion had managed to demolish.
So why did the good things have to reach their end?
What we’d had had been a fragile truce, a story forged from crystal glass, a feeling so deep, Gedeon’s death—one I’d believed in with all my being—had razed me inside out.
Yes, Zion had glued parts of me back together, and I’d rebuilt myself the best I could, but some things couldn’t be mended.Some things had been lost in the wind, never to be located and never to blossom again.
And that hole in your chest, the bottomless well of gut-wrenching screams wreaking havoc on you? It never closed.
“Hey.” Eislyn’s delicate greeting pierced the torrent of thoughts locking me in its chains.
Eli splayed his hand over Eislyn’s stomach, shifting her closer to him. Her blush accompanied her saying something to him, his response eliciting an eye roll from her, and?—
Wait.
That couldn’t be right.
Unless…
Eli hadn’t been tested for fertility. He’d been born in the compound, not the city. And Eislyn had worn a green wristband in Ilasall.
The possibility always existed, not that there was anything anyone could do about it. Any and all types of fertility suppressants had been prohibited ages ago, their properties infringing on the building blocks of our society.
Except it wasn’tmysociety anymore.
“I think we need more twigs for these to hold form,” Tarri said, scrutinizing the wobbly wreath of yellow flowers she was assembling. A few daffodil petals floated down to the blanket, the segments of corolla a liquid gold against the navy material.
Wriggling out of Eli’s hold, Eislyn said, “I’ll get some.” She wandered down the treeline, collecting twigs off the forest floor and swiping her overgrown chocolate bangs away every five steps.
Eli tracked her movements, the scar running from his lip corner to his jaw as severe as his expression whenever she roamed out of his sight.
So that was why he’d had a stick up his ass when we’d ventured into Ilasall to meet Zola and the underground contactstwo days ago. The fighter, our leading teacher of knife-based training, and Zion’s buddy in organizing smuggling operations and supply runs, had become an overprotective prick because of his unborn child. Couldn’t leave the fetus and the mother alone for a day while we sorted out matters in the city.
Collapsing onto the corner of the picnic blanket Amari and Tarri had left free of the heaps of flowers, I hissed a warning, “If you hurt Eislyn…”
She was the personification of a daffodil, graceful and frail at first look, yet boasting a mountain of strength underneath, able to weather the harshest storms.
But most importantly, she was my friend.
“What?” Eli tucked a blond lock behind his ear, his waves tickling his shoulders covered by a thick cream sweater, an inch of a loose thread hanging from the neckline. “You’ll skin me alive?”
“No.” Picking up one of the flowers, I traced the outline of a narrow leaf, the edge abrading the pad of my thumb. “I’ll carve the word ‘pig’ into your forehead so everyone can see the scars and beware.”
“If you need any assistance, count me in,” Amari added, pointing a daffodil at Eli and mimicking a gunshot.
“Me too.” Tarri folded her impossibly long, slender legs underneath her. “I can come up with a few ideas on how to make him suffer.”
Eli whistled, the melody as sharp as the withered tree bark above his head. “Damn.”
