Katherine shook her head.
“Who, then?”
Katherine bristled. He’d burst into her apartment with this macho attitude to—what? Tell her she couldn’t do her job?
“None of your business.”
Silas stood still. His brown eyes swept from Katherine’s feet to the top of her head, as if cataloging that she was all there.Present and accounted for, Katherine thought. And even if she wasn’t… well, would anyone care, at this point?
“Who am I kidding?” Silas muttered, almost as if he was talking to himself. “You don’t need anyone to protect you. Especially not me.”
Especially not melingered, ringing in her ears. Another bit of wrongness. She wanted to reach for him. Pick up the pieces and put them back in order, until he was Silas again. She didn’t know why. She didn’t even like Silas.
Didn’t she?
Cheez-It chose that auspicious moment to emerge from the bedroom, his loud meow splitting the tension in the room in half. He walked to Silas immediately, doing figure eights between his legs until Silas bent down to pet his orange fluff. He found Cheezy’s favorite spot, right behind the ears, and he continued to scratch as his eyes searched the ground, like it might have an answer to a question he couldn’t manage to ask.
He looked so lost.
We could be lost together.
The thought popped into Katherine’s mind unbidden, a temptation from another life. One where she could have sat down and been honest with him, unburdened her guilt about Lily and Byron and every damn thing she’d done wrong in her wretched existence.
But this was not that life, and she was not that girl.
She cleared her throat. “Silas. Can you tell me why you’re here?”
Silas looked up at her, his eyes shuttered. Like he’d forgotten she was there. “I…” he started, then paused, standing up and starting to pace again. Cheez-It followed him back and forth across the room, reaching his paw out for Silas’ leg, angling for more pets and not getting them. Eventually, he gave up, flouncing to the windowsill.
“Those things you said about me outside the hotel—”
“Silas, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“Yes, you did.” Silas stopped pacing directly in front of her, his eyes boring into her. “You did, because they’re true. I have no idea who I am.”
“Join the club.”
Silas shook his head emphatically, a lock of black hair shaking away from the rest and falling into his face. “You know exactly who you are.” Katherine opened her mouth to contradict him, but he plowed on. “You’re someone who fights for what you care about. Your coven. Sylvia. Fiona. Lily.”
Katherine’s heart slammed so hard into her rib cage she thought it might crack.
“Everything you do is for them. Everything. You’re trying to change the world for the better. I’m just a cog in a corporate takeover.”
There was a flash of anger at the official confirmation of why Silas was really in Los Angeles, but it didn’t last. She’d known from the beginning what he was doing. She was far too tired to be angry at him for finally being honest.
Instead, she huffed a laugh. “Ever heard of free will?” she said. “You could stop anytime, Silas.”
“I was trying to,” he said, the frustration clear as he turned away and started pacing around the room. “God, was I trying to. I was trying to find a way to maintain the small shred of integrity I have left, and I failed.”
She sighed. They were the same—both coming at things with good intentions that were crushed to nothing by the relentlessness of the world. “Well, we can flunk out of school together, I guess.”
Silas stopped, pinning her still with a searing gaze.
“Katherine, you couldn’t fail to save your life.”
Katherine’s heart stopped as Silas’ face changed, his eyes running over her now in a different way, leaving pinpricks of heat in their wake.
“Why are you here?” Katherine repeated.
