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I hit reply. Don’t judge me. I’m always careful.
She sends a whole lot of laughing emojis. I just hope these walls are soundproof. Night x
I send her a quick reply before tossing it back onto the table. I genuinely care for Val, as much as I could care for someone. It wasn’t something I expected either, since she threw so much shade toward Perse when she got here, but I think she has changed. Drastically since Perse and King have been together.
Arms wrap around my neck and I instantly melt into a puddle of goo. His cologne is like a welcome home, his touch a reminder of why I’ll never be satisfied with any other man.
I bend my neck to look at him.
He leans down and presses a kiss to my lips. Then another. Until Kenan is groaning and throwing Cheetos at us.
“Ready to go?” he asks. Perse is smirking at me smugly.
Everyone is so interested.
Sliding up from my chair, I grab my keys and phone off the table before following him out the front door.
“Wait!” I reach for his hand. “Where’s Kyrin? We should talk with him.”
“I already have. He was down there with us. Why do you think I took so long?” He tilts his head at me, searching my eyes.
I shrug. “Figured you were stuck with your mom?”
His face falls slightly. “Yeah, that.” He turns and I jog, catching up to him.
“Everything okay?” I ask as we fall into step. Figure we can pick the car up in the morning and we could probably do with the walk.
Killian doesn’t answer me, his attitude shifting one-hundred different ways. Something is bothering him. Bad. His confusion of whatever he’s dealing with is starting to shine bright like a diamond.
“Killian,” I say, a little frustrated. “You can talk to me.”
“Sass, some shit isn’t easy to say. Just drop it for now.”
I think over his words, and I know that right now isn’t the right time, so I decide to drop it.
For now.
The gravel crunches beneath my feet as we get closer and closer to my house. He hooks his arm over my shoulder and pulls me into his chest, stopping his walk. He kisses the top of my head, and I’m momentarily paralyzed by his silhouette. Wrapping his fingers around the edge of his hoodie, he flicks it down until it’s resting around my shoulders.
“Listen.” He clears his throat, his arm hooking around my back. “What I’m about to tell you, I’m telling you here because there’s nowhere for you to run and there’re no weapons that you can use against me—or at the very least access to use against me.”
My heart stops for a few seconds as the silence stretches between us. Scenarios go through my head. One after the other. Thinking of what he could have done. Truthfully, it’s Killian, he could have done anything.
His arm tightens. “The day before we were leaving Kiznitch, when I left you in bed to see Delila, she told me something that I’ve been trying to get to the bottom of. I can’t tell you what that is right now, because I’m a Brother, that means that we don’t share anything outside of our star unless we all agree it needs to be shared. You have to understand that this is what I live by, bleed for and kill for…” He tests the words out on his tongue.
I put my hand up. “Okay hang on. Before you move on, yes, I understand and I respect that. But you say kill…”
Killian silences. “Yes.”
“Is that what you do?” I ask, squeezing his arm.
“Yes.”
“Often?” I don’t know why that was the first thing I could think of to ask. I think it’s under panic. I know that he told me he had killed someone in Kiznitch to protect me, but I gathered he was lying. Or joking. Now I’m thinking, not so much.
“Too much.”
I suck in a deep breath before asking my next question. “The person you killed in Kiznitch?”
“Yeah?”
I lick my lips. “How did you know that it was me he was after? It could have been anyone?” And I find it hard to believe that someone would be coming to kill me. Me. You don’t get any more civilian type than me in Midnight Mayhem.
He wraps his arms around me and squeezes tightly before his other hand slips into his back pocket and he hands me something.
I unfold the piece of paper, pulling out my phone to use its flashlight. It’s a photo of me on my eighteenth birthday. I’m smiling up at the camera just before I’m about to blow out my candle. Brian and Alexa were beside me, Hope was taking the shot. We never had any family photos. Hope was always paranoid about photographs, so she never let us take them of her.
