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Edwin stops in front of my swing. “Come with me.”
My eyes lower to the ground.
No one can forbid me from going with him. Not my mother. Not Evelyn.
When I look back up at him, the decision is already pulling me forward.
I stand.
Calista catches my wrist. “She’s not going anywhere with you,” she tells him.
Edwin doesn’t even glance at her. “We have things to discuss.”
Right. The Trials. Everything I haven’t stopped thinking about since he climbed into the shower with me.
Calista tugs my arm until I look at her. “What’s he talking about?”
I ease my hand from her grip. “He’s helping me get information.”
The explanation sounds far smaller spoken aloud than it did inside my head. As if there’s a simple answer.
Edwin offers no help. I can’t see his eyes behind the dark, round lenses, but I can imagine their emotionless stare.
“Get in the car.”
Calista scoffs. “You’re really going to let him talk to you like that?”
I glance at her, then back at him. No explanation could make her understand.
“It’s okay,” I say. “I’ll see you later.”
Confusion flickers across her face before tightening into frustration. “Zaiya—”
Edwin’s hand settles at my waist and guides me towards the car. My body moves the way he wants it to.
Everyone around us watches openly now. Their expressions all carry the same horrified fascination, as if they’re witnessing a monster abducting me.
Maybe they are.
I slide into the car and don’t look back again.
As soon as Edwin gets into the driver’s seat, he hands me a phone.
“So we have a direct line of communication.”
The dark screen catches my reflection. Flushed cheeks. Wide eyes. A girl who looks more haunted every day she stays in Shadow Bluff.
He pulls away from the curb and the town passes by in pieces that are becoming familiar. The bakery with flower boxes under the windows. The antique store with its wagon wheel outside the door. It’s different now that I know what it tries to conceal.
“As my Aspirant, you’ll be protected and taken care of,” he says. “But the Trials won’t be easy.”
I turn to him expectantly. “You haven’t explained what that is.”
He exhales through his nose. “My Aspirant. My partner in the Dominion Trials.”
The title sounds far too formal to belong to me. This isn’t some vague arrangement. There are special names and rules and expectations I know nothing about.
And this is what I am to him now. An Aspirant.
