“Thayla…” he pleads as he gets to his knees.
His attention falls to his own hands and the crushing look that crosses his face slows my retreat. His palms shake against his thighs as he falls back against his heels.
“Please hear me out. Hear us out. We can explain everything that’s happening to you. I promise this is real. I’m real. These…are real. I’ll swear it on anything you want me to swear it on.”
My mouth gapes open as I trace the plea on his features.
Somehow, me shaking my head turns into a nod once when my voice fails me.
My eyes widen when his brothers pop out of starshoots behind him not two seconds later. Confusion colors their faces for a breath before all their attention lands on me.
“Thayla,” Amick breathes as he takes a hesitant step forward.
Kyzen’s arm stops him.
“Hey, gorgeous.”
I fall into the depths of his navy irises as he lowers himself to the ground. The light blue rings around his pupils aren’t shining on their own with his power, but the glow stick lying by his knee illuminates his whole face.
I sit but keep my tense fingers in the grass and heels dug in, ready to shove me up.
“Hi.”
“Can we sit with you?”
“How did you know where we were?”
“Riven asked Verlet to tell us to come out here. This is the spot he likes to hang out with him at if he isn’t at the hot spring.”
My attention slides back to Riven.
He set our finish line up at his spot because he thought he was going to win our race.
I won.
That really happened.
“What’s happening to me?” I ask and let my gaze roam over each of them. Creed and Amick shift from side to side on their feet. “Sit down, please.”
They do. Cautiously.
I don’t know whether to be thankful or offended.
“I’m going to move behind you, if that’s okay?” Kyzen asks.
My muscles lock up. “Why?”
“Because you need touch. You need to feel the weight of something real. The pulse of a living being.”
“You felt a little better on the back of Seismet, right?” Riven asks hopefully.
That’s the most alive I’ve felt in the last two days.
“That sensation is drifting away now, isn’t it?”
“How do you know that?”
His lips tighten into a frown.
