“I don't blame you.”
“But you blame yourself.”
She pulled the blankets over her head, sounding nothing like herself when she spoke. “I don't know. It hurts.”
Yeah. It did.
They stayed like that for a long time. Whenever she finally emerged from the blankets, her worried eyes lingered on him. “Did something bad happen?”
“You were there for the bad thing.”
“No.” Her stare cut through him. “Something else is wrong.”
It was sick hiding this from her. What would the Phaedra do if he told her? He couldn't risk his wrath given the existing danger, but this was particularly cruel. “Nothing else is wrong. Just rest.”
Kira knew how to read him too well now. She saw through his mask.
Some days in the territories, sleep deprivation and physical exertion made taking a single step feel impossible. And yet, he'd had to continue. That same heaviness constantly pulled on him without a break since Mom died. Zayne couldn't do this, but he had to.
The suspicion remained while she stared at him, and Zayne wanted to destroy everything in the room thinking about having to tell her about Mom.
CHAPTER 54
Zayne
The Capital
Kallum, Ciondo
833 P.C. [Post-Collapse]
Mellie laced her fingers with Zayne's while they strolled through the shopping square on their way to her favorite bakery to sample wedding cakes.
Holding her hand felt as wrong as trying out desserts after losing Mom less than a week ago. When Zayne decided to leave Ciondo for good, he didn't think about how that also meant leaving Mellie, and that he couldn't break up with her beforehand. Any life changes cast suspicion on him.
Though Zayne didn't feel for Mellie the way he had for Nadia, he meant his commitment to her. He did his best to be good to her, to make her happy, to hide his frustrations and annoyance from her, to protect her feelings. His relationship with her was real. So continuing to plan this wedding with her when he wasn't marrying her made him feel sick. It was wrong.
In his heart, he left Mellie the second he chose to leave his country. He didn't want to lie to her and fool her. But what choice did he have? Endangering Kira and his mission wasn't an option, no matter how badly he didn't want to hurt Mellie.
“Are you sure you don't want to wait?” Mellie asked, a worried gaze on him. “We should go back home.”
“My mother won't be any less dead a week from now. There's no point in waiting.”
Her hand stiffened in his, but she nodded without arguing and then flashed a kind smile. “Okay, babe.”
That came out harsher than he meant it. “I want to see you happy.” That was the truth. If he was about to break her heart, if he had to pretend they'd spend their life together, he'd give her good memories to hold onto. The Phaedra might cover up his betrayal by reporting him as dead. Mellie might never know that he abandoned her.
The door of a restaurant flung open, and two civilians sprinted out onto the street—a woman and a teenage boy. They screamed, holding each other's hands while soldiers stormed after them.
Zayne yanked Mellie behind him, counting seven soldiers in total, all aiming their weapons at who he presumed to be mother and son. He saw fingers on triggers, and shoppers in the path of danger if any of them opened fire. What were these soldiers thinking?
The pedestrians all stopped, gasps and screams ripping from the crowd.
A soldier reached the mother and bashed his gun into her shoulder, knocking her into her son. The civilians crashed to the ground, the boy's head cracking against the pavement.
More cries from the crowd. Blood speckled the ground in front of the son while his mother gripped him, shrieking.
The soldiers surrounded them now, blocking them from Zayne's sight.
