Page 145 of A Sweet Destruction

“You broke a promise, young lady.”

If Peter didn’t look genuinely upset, I would have responded with something snappier than, “I’m sorry.”

In truth, I had broken a promise. When I’d woken up after Ford’s rescue, Peter had made me swear that I wouldn’t put myself in harm’s way again like that. It wasn’t something I could entirely control, but we’d both known what he meant. Then he handed me a bottle of blue pills and my world changed.

“I’m just,” Peter’s voice cracked over the word, “glad to see you’re okay.”

“You can say it.” I attempted a smile, but could only pull my lips so far until my throat started to hurt. “That you told us so.” Without those trackers, I would be dead right now.

Peter shook his head with a laugh, then put his hands over his face as a sob broke out of his throat.

“Peter?” I asked, echoing everyone’s confusion.

He dropped his hands from his face, then placed them lightly on my ankles at the foot of the bed, squeezing once. “You gave me quite the scare, that’s all.”

“Okay…” I looked to Ford to see his expression, but he was looking down at my hand, still clasped between his.

We really needed to be alone, to talk about some things. Before we could do that…

“Do we need to debrief?” I asked, trying and failing to straighten up in bed.

Peter shook his head. “Ford told us everything.” Then proceeded to recap, in rather grave detail, what happened.

Ford said everything I would have. How Elijah seemed to be acting without Caspian’s approval. How he knew that we’d uncovered their secret—that the Bond didn’t exist on Muli. How Soren and Bellamy were still clearly a target. Even that, though unconfirmed, Elijah’s interest in the Bond seemed borderline obsessive.

“Where is Freya?” I’d asked in the middle of that conversation.

“With Sky,” Ford answered, speaking against the skin on the back of my hand. Just those two words, just the warmth vibrating from his voice into my skin, and I felt like I’d jumped forward a day in healing.

“He’s doing okay?” My sweet, sweet boy. I was sure he was part of how we’d gotten back to camp. I probably gave him quite the fright—again.

Ford nodded. “Antsy. Will really only let me and Freya touch him, so she’s been with him so he doesn’t chomp someone’s finger off.”

“Thank you for taking care of him,” I said, too tired to keep the affection out of my voice, probably out of my expression, too.

Then Ford’s face fell and I wondered if I had actually died and this was the hell I’d been forced into, having to exist in this awful limbo where Ford still believed that I didn’t love him.

It was suddenly very, very important to me that we get time alone. Uninterrupted at that.

I knew that wasn’t going to happen until we had some very long discussions about where we stood.

“Can someone just tell me how close to all out war we are so I can go back to sleep?”

Bellamy, bless her, was the only one who laughed, albeit a lightly scared chuckle.

“We’re not there quite yet,” Peter said. “If Elijah was truly acting alone, we don’t want to blow up peace negotiations just yet.”

“Well, someone needs to kill him.” I would be very happy if that person was me, and I could drive a knife right through his stupid face.

Maybe I was still on a healthy dose of pain meds, because everyone was trying to cover up a smile. I thought that was a very reasonable thing to say.

Peter, the ever serious one, continued, “We are sending Bellamy and Soren back to Vir. Both for their own safety and to discuss the treaty with the Emperor.”

Good. Smart.

“In the meantime, you will be healing. We are going to put together a few teams to—”

"Kill Elijah?” I asked hopefully. Ford still wasn’t cracking a smile, which I really did not appreciate.