Poison's Kiss (Poison's Kiss #1)(36)

“Come on, monkey. Tell me what you’re thinking.”

His voice is so quiet I have to strain to hear him. “He’s going to hate us.” I close my eyes. Mani’s right, but it hurts to admit it, even to myself. I crouch down and touch his shoulder.

“If he hates anyone, it will be me,” I say. “He has no reason to hate you.”

Mani looks up at me, his chin quivering. “Even if he hates only you, I’ll never see him again.” This makes my throat burn. Mani asks for so little, and I wish I could give him this—Deven as his friend.

“Maybe he won’t hate either one of us,” I say. “Maybe he’ll be grateful I warned him.” But we both know it won’t matter. Whether Deven is angry with me or not, he will need to leave Sundari to stay safe. It’s likely that neither one of us will ever see him again. I press a kiss on the top of Mani’s head, take a deep breath and cross the street.

My hand trembles as I knock on the door. Three seconds pass and then ten. I’m torn between hoping he’s home and praying he’s not—it’s not clear which is safer for him. A full minute passes and I’m just about to walk away when the door swings open. My heart trips forward at the sight of Deven. He is dressed casually, with damp hair and bare feet as if he’s just emerged from the shower. His face is open and friendly, and I feel the corners of my mouth lifting without my permission. But then he focuses on my face and his expression goes dark. It startles me so much that I take a small step back.

“What are you doing here?” He practically throws the words at me, slaps me with them. This isn’t the same boy who held me to his chest, who kissed my forehead. He’s not looking at me like I’m the perfect girl from his imagination anymore. This is an expression I recognize, one I know as well as I know my own face. It’s the one I wear when I look in the mirror.

My throat feels strangled, but I force myself to speak. “I need to talk to you,” I say. “It’s important.”

Deven shakes his head. “I have nothing to say to you.” His tone has a finality that leaves no room for argument. He tries to close the door, and I have to press myself in front of it to stop him.

“Are you angry with me?” Even as the question leaves my mouth, I realize it sounds foolish.

Deven’s laugh comes out like a bark. “Angry? You could say that.”

My mind is racing, but I’m coming up with more questions than answers. Deven has a hundred reasons to hate me, but I haven’t explained any of them yet.

“May I ask why you’re angry?”

His eyes narrow. “Marinda.” He says my name softly, almost tenderly. “Have you been pouring poison into my drinks?”

All the air leaves my lungs and I have to hold on to the doorframe for support. “How did you—”

“So it’s true?” For just a moment his hard expression softens to a wounded one.

“It’s not like that,” I tell him. “I can explain.”

Deven rakes both hands through his hair. “I really doubt that,” he says. His fingers curl into fists. “Did the people you work for hit Iyla? Did they whip her until she could barely walk?”

I can hear the rush of my heartbeat in my ears, and something inside me unspools. Tears prickle at the corners of my eyes, but I blink them away. I refuse to let him see me cry. Not when he’s looking at me like that.

“Did they?” Deven asks through a clenched jaw.

“Yes,” I say in a whisper.

“And did that have anything to do with me?” I open my mouth to explain, but before I can say anything, he asks another question. “Are you a killer, Marinda?”

I am completely undone. I wrap my arms around my middle as if I can hold myself together. I want to explain, to tell him my version of events, but it’s too late. Iyla has fed Deven a tale that is completely true, and when I hear it spill from his mouth, I sound like a monster. He will never forgive me. I was right that Iyla’s power for destruction is in her words, and her bruised face tells a better story than I can. But at least she kept her promise. I won’t have to kill Deven—there is no chance he will ever let me get close enough again. My ribs ache with the loss of him, even though he was never really mine.

“I didn’t want to believe it,” he says. “Even when I realized what you’d done to Mani, I wanted it to be a mistake.”

My head snaps up. “What I’d done to Mani?”

“Drop the pretense,” he says. “Anyone with eyes can see that he’s in the late stages of vish bimari. To work for the people you do—to kill for them—it’s awful. But to harm a child? It’s disgusting.”

I feel as if I’ve been plunged into a black hole. Bile rises at the back of my throat. Vish bimari. Poison disease. It’s what kills most of the babies exposed to the toxin. It’s what failed to kill me. But that’s not what Mani has—it’s impossible. He got sick right after Gopal nearly drowned him. The timing of the symptoms would be too much of a coincidence. Unless…I think back to when Gopal pulled Mani from the river, when I nearly put my lips to his. Did I get too close then? My stomach curls into a ball of fear. Maybe that’s why the breathing treatments only half work. Or maybe I’m more toxic than I think, and being with me is too much for his little body. I’ve tried to be so careful. I never kiss him on his face. We never share food or drinks. But maybe it’s not enough. Am I slowly killing him?