Insurrection (Nevermore #1)(10)

Yeah, it was a stupid question in retrospect.

“What am I going to do, Xed?”

“Same as the rest of us ... survive.”

Easier said than done. She didn’t know how to without her parents. “I’ve never been on my own.”

“Joey always says that we come into this world alone and alone we leave it. That it’s why so many doorways are narrow. Because some thresholds are meant to be crossed solo, on our own two feet. If we’re lucky, we might have someone at our back. But don’t count on it. Just hold your head high. Take a deep breath and walk through it with confidence and determination, and be ready to face whatever’s on the other side, waiting for you.”

“And if it’s a bomb?”

“Duck and cover.”

She snorted at his facetiousness.

Xared took her hand and held it tight—just like he’d done on that day so long ago when they’d started school together. “I’m right here, Daria. You’re not by yourself.”

“Why would you? I crapped all over you today.”

He wiped the tears from her eyes. “You acted out of fear, to protect your parents and yourself. I can forgive that. Had you been Frayne and turned me in because you’re an asshole who thrives on cruelty, then I’d be coming for you and all you hold sacred. Trust me. I’m not through with him. I plan to rain down a hell on him that he will long remember.”

She frowned at his words. “Hell? As in the Human Extermination Licensing Leaders?”

He made a pain-filled noise at her question. “No. That’s a sick Maten play on an old human concept. Hell’s our version of your dudaella.”

She sucked her breath in sharply at his words. “You’re not a Zsivasist?”

His features grim, he shook his head. “No. I’m Catholic.”

“Cawotholic?”

He grinned at the way she stumbled over the foreign word she’d never heard before. “It’s very different from the religion you grew up with.”

“Yet I’ve seen you at kaltrium every week. You’ve never missed a single prútscype, or even been late.”

“Because Maten church is mandatory for us, and if you’re late, they take it personally.”

He spoke those human terms so effortlessly along with their native tongue that the two languages blended seamlessly together. Yet she knew the instant he used a human term by the harshness of its sound and the fact that it was completely alien to her ears.

Just as his species was.

It’s your species now, too.

That thought made her want to hyperventilate. Worse, it made her claustrophobic. The walls around her seemed to shrink as her world crashed in again.

And with that realization came another more startling one. “I can never go back home again, can I?”

“This is your home now. Sorry. Frayne saw to that the moment he turned me in.”

Not to sound selfish, but… “What has that to do with me?”

He gave her a look that questioned her intelligence. “Think about it, Daria. Your maternal grandmother was fully human. She wasn’t able to blend in with the Matens. Ever. So when your mother wanted to leave behind the colony where she’d been sheltered as a girl, it was my mother’s family who forged your mother’s papers and took her in so that she could adjust to, and enter, Maten society.”

Which meant that as soon as the authorities began investigating his family and their history, they would have uncovered that connection to her mother, and immediately homed in on her and her parents. Something Frayne wouldn’t have known, and a fact Daria hadn’t thought about.

One that terrified her even more as she realized what she’d been spared. The Dawners were merciless in their pursuit of the humans. Ruthless to a level that didn’t bear thinking on. They’d have shown her no pity, or any restraint, because of age or gender. Not even her high-ranking family ties would have been able to spare her their torture as they sought information about Josiah and his followers. Her Maten family would have all distanced themselves as best they could, and thrown her and her parents to the wolves for the feast.

And because she knew nothing, they’d have eventually killed her and put her remains on public display.

I owe everything to Xared’s psycho uncle.

But she’d never admit that out loud.

And as she sat there, mulling it all over, another truth slapped her hard. One she couldn’t deny and it crushed her soul beneath the weight of its shame. “I did this to us all. I’ve ruined our lives!”

Murdered them, in fact.

“Don’t you dare start whining like a human.” Xared used the Maten phrase he no doubt knew would shock her out of her fragile state. “Frayne was behind this. It’s his burden to carry. Not yours.”

She glared at him for his insult. “I shouldn’t have taken my position in HELL.”

“Stop it, Daria. This had nothing to do with that. Frayne used you as a means to get under my skin and cut me deeper. Had it not been you, he’d have gone to someone else.”

“How do you know?”

Xared sighed heavily. “I was an obstacle he wanted out of the way. Nothing would have stopped him from removing me. Had he not found my necklace, he’d have fabricated something. I just happened to make it easy on him.”