He stares at her wound, as if the sight of it is fueling a raging fire inside him. “If you don’t tell me who did this to you, I’ll pull every single student at this school into the chapel and burn them with the fire of Malevimus until they confess.”
Dorian’s name is on the tip of her tongue, but Cassius can’t do anything to punish him. If anything, telling Cassius anything at all about her bargainer would only speed up the clock of his life. For reasons Claudia doesn’t understand, Dorian already hates Cassius. What’s stopping him from dragging Cassius into a nightmare and killing him then and there?
“I can’t,” she whimpers.
His eyes flare. His fists are shaking at his sides. “Claudia. Give. Me. The. Name.”
Biting her lip, she wishes so badly she could tell him the truth, but all she can say is “I did it to myself.” Tears well in her eyes when she watches sorrow spread over his face.
His eyes well with shock and horror. “Why?”
She shrugs and cries, “Punishment. I deserve so much worse than this.”
“Are you mad? You have done nothing to deserve this kind of pain.”
Laughing weakly through her tears, she says, “You don’t know me, Cassius. I am rotten.”
“I do know you, Claudia, and I know that you are good.”
As she wipes the blood from her chest, she stares down at her fingers, red and glistening. “What if I told you that you were right about me all along? I didn’t kill Odette, but that doesn’t mean I’m not a killer. Iam. I am stained with blood.”
He reaches for her hands, but she jerks them out of his reach.
“Who did you kill?”
“I killed my father. He was trying to stop me from coming here, so I stabbed him in the heart. He fell in the Doorway after, but that wasn’t what killed him. It was me.” She sinks to the floor and brings her knees to her chest. Her gaze drifts, her vision blurs. “That day, hesoldme. He sold me like cattle to a man sixty years my senior. That’s why he didn’t want me to come here—not because he cared about me, but because I was his only way out of the debt he brought on himself. So, you know what? I would do it all over again. I had to take his life in order to get my own.”
Cassius drops to his knees and stares at her. It takes her too long to find the strength to meet his gaze.
“Say it,” she whispers, her voice choked. “You hate me.”
“Not at all.”
She wipes her tears from her cheek. “What are you thinking?”
He tears the sleeve off his white undershirt and pulls her close. With the strip of fabric, he cleans the blood from her wound. “I’m thinking that I wish it could’ve been me.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I wish I could’ve been there. I wish the knife was in my hand. I wish I was the one who killed him for you.”
“You… you don’t hate me?”
“I never could. I never will.” He kisses her forehead. “Forgive yourself, Claudia. You were abused. You were sold. You did what you had to do to escape.”
“No,” she snaps. “I am rotten. I am wicked. I’m akillerand you shouldn’t—”
“Shh, shh, shh,” he whispers. “You’re a fighter, Star Girl. No one should ever call you anything less.” He cradles her head to his chest. Her tears drip onto his robes, darkening the fabric and dulling the silken sheen. His heart beats rapidly against her cheek. So, so alive.
A small, pathetic sound escapes from her lips. How many beats does his heart have left? She bites down hard on the inside of her cheek, squeezing her eyes shut.
“It’s all right, love.”
Love.It’s the word that breaks her. She presses her face into his chest and sobs.
He’s dying. He’s dying and nothing will ever hurt worse than that.
“I’m sorry,” she says through her cries. “I’m a mess. I’m sorry.”
