Total pages in book: 47
Estimated words: 46899 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 234(@200wpm)___ 188(@250wpm)___ 156(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 46899 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 234(@200wpm)___ 188(@250wpm)___ 156(@300wpm)
I had to admit I’d never heard it spoken like that.
Not as a threat. Not as leverage.
As living, breathing, grief.
I told myself this marriage was strategy. That the poison was precaution. That turning him into a weapon meant I would never have to be vulnerable again.
But weapons didn’t break your heart.
Weapons didn’t let you hold their hair while they threw up. Weapons didn’t joke about losing what little vanity they had left. Weapons didn’t talk about birthday cakes they never got.
I pressed my fingers to my lips.
He never said a name.
Not once.
And somehow that made it worse. Like saying the name might break a part of him that couldn’t ever be fixed.
I knew exactly what kind of man remembered details like balloons and dinosaurs and ice cream cake. I knew what kind of loss left marks that deep. A man like my father. Like the men in our family who I love and respect. And I know what kind of monster it took to put a bullet between someone’s eyes and not care.
The vial in my purse feels heavier now. Hotter. Like it knew something I didn’t.
I thought control would make me safe.
But control required distance. And somewhere between the bathroom floor and his confession, that distance collapsed.
He’d threatened me.
I should be angry.
Instead, I was terrified.
Thrilled?
No. I tamped it down. The last thing I needed was to lose focus. Because for the first time since I was a child watching adults smile through perfectly crafted lies, I wasn’t sure who the real danger was anymore.
Him.
Or the part of me that didn’t want to hurt him again.
I straightened my spine. Fixed my face. Practiced the mask that had kept me alive this long.
Stay in control of the game.
Know the pieces to play and know your role.
I need him to infiltrate.
The end.
Full stop.
Before I left the room, I whispered the truth I wouldn’t let myself think too loudly.
I hadn’t planned for him to matter.
And that— that might be the deadliest poison of all.
16
LOUIS
The soul is the prison of the body. — Michel Foucault
Istared up at the ceiling, thinking about the vial of whatever poison she wanted to give me next. I almost shot a text to Cassian; instead, I kept staring. It didn’t help, but it gave me something to focus on.
At night it was harder.
I thought of him, I thought of his face. I thought of the pain, and it made the burn I felt in my soul, the guilt, lessen. I was using her the same way she was using me.
A soft knock sounded at my door.
“Come in.”
I smelled her before I saw her. The fragrance was expensive, not too flowery, more masculine, woodsy, like she was trying to be my peer not my partner. Tempest lay down next to me. “You’ll take the next shot of poison tomorrow morning, the final at night, and then—”
"I turn into Cinderella?” I joked.
She ignored it. “Either I see you again and it was all worth it or…you simply cease to matter.”
"Jokes on them,” I whispered to myself, knowing it made me weak. “I don’t think I’ve mattered for a very long time.”
"How tragic to think you’ll never be missed.”
“How arrogant,” I countered, “to assume you’d be missed at all.”
“Touché.” She slowly sat up. “We probably could have been friends in another life, maybe lovers, if you hadn’t been in love with my sister first.”
I’d expected her final blow, I knew it would be swift, deadly, so why did it hurt so much? We’d shared a few moments and she still threw everything back at me like she was so damn afraid to get close to feeling anything.
Without thinking, I grabbed her by the waist and pulled her back against me. “Sleep with me.”
“I’m not getting naked.”
“Did I say anything about getting naked?”
She squirmed.
I kissed the back of her head. “If I’m going to cease to exist tomorrow, possibly, I think I deserve right now, this moment, with the only one who might mourn me.”
"And if I say I’ll never give your death a second thought?”
“I’d say you’re lying, Tempest.”
“Why’s that?” She turned in my arms and faced me. “Why would it be a lie?”
"Because…” I leaned in and brushed my lips across her neck. “I’m the sort of man that you think about—often.”
"Narcissist.”
"Realist,” I snapped back. “Now, stop annoying me with your voice so I can focus on the only part I like about you.”
She reared back. “My face?”
“No.” I grabbed her hands. “These. They reach for me before your brain can tell you to stop—they’re the only honest thing about you, Tempest. Your hands.”
Her lower lip wobbled, just enough for me to catch it, just enough for me to pull her closer for a little bit longer. Was that going to be all I could hold on to? The small moments where we were both fractured? Human? Where we allowed each other to see beyond the cracks? I didn’t even know anymore. I stared down at her hands and gripped them, then slowly lowered my head until my lips were just a breath away from her knuckles and one by one I kissed my way around her hands counting as I went, and when I finally reached ten I pressed my forehead to both of them. “Beautiful.”