Our Dark Duet (Monsters of Verity #2)(66)

“We’re all going to die,” murmured the prisoner. “I’ll make it fast.”

Flynn tapped a microphone. “Do you know who you are?”

The soldier twitched, shuddered at the voice, and shook his head, as if trying to dislodge something. “Myer. Squad Sixteen.”

“Do you know what you’ve done?”

“I didn’t mean to but it felt so good so good I want to—no no no.” His breath hitched, and then he mouthed something, too low to hear. Kate read his lips.

Kill me.

And then, just as quickly, he was back again, promising mercy, mercy—that he would make it quick—and Kate wrapped her arms around her ribs.

This is me.

A hand settled on her shoulder. “Come on,” said August, and she let him lead her away from the soldier and his screams.

As soon as they were in the elevator, Kate slumped against the wall and bowed her head, eyes lost behind the shadow of her bangs. August couldn’t read her face like that, and it made him think of the way she’d looked out on the light grid—when she’d looked into the mirror and all of her features had gone eerily blank, like she wasn’t even there. And then she’d come crashing back, all the color and life rushing into her face before the force of it—whatever it was—hit her.

“You’re staring,” said Kate without looking up.

“Out there,” he said slowly. “When you were searching for it—”

“Everything has a cost.”

“You should have told me.”

“Why?” Her head drifted up. “You said yourself, August. We do what we have to. We become what we have to.” They reached the top floor, and Kate stepped out. “I thought you of all people would approve.”

August trailed her down the hall. “It’s not the same.”

Kate gave him an exasperated look. “No,” she said, “You’re right. It’s not.” She cocked her head, bangs sliding aside to reveal the silver in her eye. It had spread, thrown out cracks and stolen more of the blue. “This thing in my head, it’s not going away. It’s there, every moment, trying to tip that balance, and turn me into that thing parading as a soldier in your basement. But at least I’m fighting it.”

With that she turned and vanished down the hall.

Let her go, said Leo.

But August didn’t.

He found her sitting on his bed, her knees drawn up.

He set the violin case against the door and sank onto the bed beside her, suddenly exhausted. For a few long moments they sat there, neither speaking, even though he knew how much Kate hated silence. And, even though his presence should make her want to speak, it was his own voice that rose out of the quiet.

“I didn’t stop fighting,” he said, the words so low he worried Kate wouldn’t hear them, but she did. “I just got tired of losing. It’s easier this way.”

“Of course it’s easier,” said Kate. “That doesn’t mean it’s right.”

Right. The world broke down into right and wrong, innocence and guilt. It was supposed to be a simple line, a clean divide, but it wasn’t.

“You asked me where I went,” he said, pressing his palms together. “I don’t know.” And that small confession, it was like stepping off a cliff, and he was falling. “I don’t know who I am, and who I’m not, I don’t know who I’m supposed to be, and I miss who I was; I miss it every day, Kate, but there’s no place for that August anymore. No place for the version of me who wanted to go to school, and have a life, and feel human, because this world doesn’t need that August. It needs someone else.”

Kate’s shoulder came to rest against his, warm, solid.

“I spent a long time playing that game,” she said. “Pretending there were other versions of this world, where other versions of me got to live, and be happy, even if I didn’t, and you know what? It’s lonely as hell. Maybe there are other versions, other lives, but this one’s ours. It’s all we’ve got.”

“I can’t protect this world and care about it.”

Kate met his gaze. “That’s the only way to do it.”

He folded forward. “I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because it hurts too much.” He shuddered. “Every day, every loss, it hurts.”

“I know.” Kate’s hand threaded through his, and for an instant he was curled against the bottom of a bathtub, fever tearing over his skin with Kate’s grip and her voice his only anchors.

I’m not letting go.

Her grip tightened.

“Look at me,” she said, and he dragged his head up. Her face was inches from his own, her eyes midnight blue, save for the violent silver crack.

“I know it hurts,” she said. “So make it worth the pain.”

“How?”

“By not letting go,” she said softly. “By holding on, to anger, or hope, or whatever it is that keeps you fighting.”

You, he thought.

And for once, a word felt simple, because Kate was the one who kept him fighting, who looked at him and saw him, and saw through him at the same time, and who never let go.

He didn’t decide to kiss her. One second her mouth was an inch from his, and the next, his lips were on hers, and the next, she was kissing him back, and the next, they were a tangle of limbs, and the next, Kate was on top of him, pressing him down into the sheets.