“No— Reth!” I scream, slamming my palms against the glass so hard my hands sting. “Reth, look at me! Please!”
He keeps walking. Shoulders straight. Head down. Like if he looks back even once, he’ll come running and never let me go.
Ian pulls me down into the seat, buckling me in with firm, practiced hands while I fight him like a wild animal.
“Ian— stop! We can’t leave him! We can’t?—”
The plane lifts off.
I twist in my seat, pressing my forehead to the cold window, tears pouring down my face in hot, ugly streams. I watch him grow smaller and smaller on the tarmac below — just a dark silhouette against the golden morning light, getting farther and farther away until he’s nothing but a fading shadow.
The man who finally said he loved me.
My chest feels hollowed out. Like someone reached in and took the most vital part of me, leaving nothing but bleeding edges and his last words still ringing in my ears.
“Crazy, I’m sorry.”
“Don’t,” I snap at Ian. “Don’t fucking talk to me.”
For the duration of the flight, he doesn’t.
All I do is stare out the window, those three words — the ones he finally gave me, raw and bleeding and true — echoing in the silence.
I love you.
He said it.
And I didn’t get a chance to say it back.
Dear Nazareth,
I'm never speaking to Ian again.
I'm never speaking to you again.
I hate you.
I hate Ian.
I hate this stupid world for putting you in it and then making it impossible to keep you.
All lies.
I don't hate any of it.
That's the worst part.
23
RETH
Idon’t announce myself.
The first guard at the east gate never even gets the radio to his mouth.
I come up behind him, clamp one hand over his mouth, and drag the karambit across his throat in one clean slice. The blade opens him ear-to-ear. Wet, gurgling comes from somewhere deep, fingers clawing uselessly at my wrist as his legs kick once, twice, then go limp. I hold him upright until the last twitch dies, then drop him in a boneless heap.
“Hale, what the fuck…” Dimitri gets three steps farther, already reaching for the intercom when I slam into him. My forearm crushes his windpipe. He tries to scream — it comes out a strangled wheeze. I spin him, drive the karambit up under his ribs, and twist hard. The blade grinds against bone. Blood floods hot over my hand, down my wrist, soaking my sleeve. His eyes meet mine for one terrified second before I yank the knife free and slit his belly open from navel to sternum. Intestines spill out in a glistening, ropey tangle, steaming in the cool night air. He folds, clutching at his own guts, then falls.
