The words don’t feel like safety. They feel like being shelved until the final decision is made. He picks up the kit. Takes two steps before he stops.
Without turning around, he says, “For what it’s worth—”
My whole body goes tight.
He glances back over one shoulder. “You’re very bad at being what Kaya made you.”
Then he walks out.
The front door shuts behind him with a soft click.
And somehow that’s worse than if he’d threatened me.
Because now I’m left alone with the possibility that he knows exactly what I am.
Andexactlywhat I’m not.
Chapter 42
Maksim
Vaska steps out of the apartment and the first thing I do is look past him.
Instinct.
Stupid, worthless instinct.
I don’t know if I’m checking for a body or hoping not to see one.
There’s nothing behind him except the open doorway and dark apartment shadow.
Good.
Or not.
I don’t fucking know anymore.
I push off the wall too fast, rage and relief hitting hard enough together to make me feel sick.
“Well?”
Vaska shuts the door behind him.
Infuriatingly calm. I want to break his face for it.
He looks at me once, takes in whatever’s on mine, and says, “Kaya started using her as a punching bag when she was thirteen.”
The words land flat and brutal.
He continues with the sad little story of the beginning of her life.
I say nothing.
Can’t.
Because all I can see is Ayla in that bathroom, bruised and wet and too tired to stand straight. Her face when she flinched from my hand. The rope burns. The split in her lip.
Gabriel Kaya.
