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I blink. The words take a second to travel through the fog in my skull. “Hm?”

“Kento,” Dimitri repeats. His voice is raspy, but his eyes are steady when he turns his head to look at me. “Since when?”

I stare at him. Then I look down at my lap, my fingers twitch against my thighs.

“I don’t know,” I say quietly. I don’t even know where to begin explaining any of this. They must have been confused after what I blurted out while yelling at Alexei last time, and now they’ve seen just how badly I lose my fucking mind when Kento is involved.

I can barely make sense of it myself. How am I supposed to explain it to them?

“He took two bullets for you,” Dimitri mutters. I think he’s trying to convince himself he’s good for me.

“I shot him first,” I whisper, the guilt spiking behind my ribs. “Alya had the gun to my hand, but I pulled the trigger.”

I turn my head to the right. Every ten paces, there’s a man. Kazuma guards. They’ve locked down the fourth floor so thoroughly the hospital staff have to show badge clearance just to change an IV bag.

“Did Rei ask about the small army in the hallway?” I ask.

Dimitri rubs a tired hand over his face, dragging the skin down. “Yeah. He did.”

“What did you tell him?”

“The truth,” Dimitri sighs.

I nod slowly, my chin dropping to my chest.

“They’re all dead.” My voice sounds pathetic. Like it belongs to a twelve-year-old hiding in an attic.

Dimitri shifts beside me. “Ilya—”

“My father,” I continue, numbly counting them on my fingers. “My brother. My sister.” My throat spasms. “And I don’t even know who the villain was supposed to be. Did Anton start it? Did my father make him that way? Did Alya hate me because I was born with the wrong parts?”

I press the heels of my hands against my eyes until red stars burst behind my lids.

“It feels like I never had a family to begin with. Like I just grew up in a house full of armed strangers waiting for an excuse to slit my throat.”

A hand lands on the back of my neck. “You had one,” Dimitri says. “You do have one. You have us.”

I lower my hands. I look at him sideways, skeptical. “Do I?”

Dimitri’s brows knit together. “Do you feel like you don’t?”

I shrug one shoulder, staring down at my boots. “I don’t know,” I mutter. “A little. When you two got busy, it was… I don’t know. I guess I felt left out.”

Dimitri opens his mouth, but I keep talking before he can interrupt.

“I get it now, though,” I add, cracking a tiny, crooked smirk that doesn’t reach my eyes. “I’d rather spend my time with Kento than listen to you two idiots too.”

“Excuse me?” Dimitri barks, his jaw dropping. “You ungrateful little goblin, you’re insulting my company?!”

“I’m just saying, I get it.”

“I am better company!” Dimitri snaps, though I catch the relief in his eyes when he sees my small smile. “He is a fucking psychopath.”

“Pot, meet kettle,” Alexei cuts in calmly.

Dimitri glares past me at his cousin. “Whose side are you on?”

“Ilya’s,” Alexei says.