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These fuckers had to pay.
“You faced one, but at what cost?”
“Holden, don’t.”
“No, listen to me. At what cost? Would Keats want you to risk your life like this?”
That got my attention. I spun around and cleared the distance between us in less than a second, jamming my finger hard into his sternum. “Don’t you dare say his name to me. How can you pull it out like it’s a fucking magic trick, and play the what would Keaty say card. That’s a horseshit, low move, and you shouldn’t have said it.”
“I’m not taking it back.”
“Fuck you.”
“Fuck you,” he spat back. “You think you’re the only one suffering? You think your pain is the only real emotion here? Goddamn, Secret. You’re so blind to everything around you because you’re too lost in your own fucking bullshit to see what’s going on with anyone else.”
“I—”
“No, you don’t get to talk. You’ve had your say, now it’s my turn. This isn’t your city. This is our city. I’ve lived here since before your mother’s mother was born. I have known things about this place and have loved more people in it than you will love in your whole damned life. And I’m just as scared as you are about what’s happening. I know you’re mad. So am I. We all are. Every person you left at that hotel cares just as much about this as you do. This isn’t your vendetta. Not every fight has to be yours alone, you know.”
He paused, and I stared at him wide-eyed, unsure if he was going to continue or not.
“Are you done?” I asked.
“No.”
But rather than saying anything, we stood there in silence with only the sounds of burning buildings and the restless dead to keep us company.
“Well?”
“I can’t let you go in there. Not just because it’s selfish and stupid, but because I can’t risk losing you.”
I chewed the inside of my cheek to keep from crying. “I won’t—”
“Oh shut up, would you?” He looped his hand around the back of my neck and pulled me to him for a bruising kiss.
My cheeks burned from the suddenness of it. This was no quick kiss, nothing like the sweetness of our goodbye kiss only a few days earlier. This was a deep, dirty, end-of-the-world kiss. The kind of thing that evoked images of getting fucked up against a wall with almost all your clothes still on.
His fingers gripped my neck, holding me in place, and I braced my hands against his chest. I thought my intention was to push him away, but the need and urgency from his mouth stayed my hand. I closed my eyes and melted into it, meeting him measure for measure, and when he pulled back, we were both gasping.
I took a step away and stumbled, my legs gone rubbery underneath me.
“Whoa.”
“Sorry,” he mumbled.
I couldn’t say I was sorry, because kisses like that were the thing people dreamed about when they watched Gone with the Wind. Maddening, dema
nding kisses built to consume a person from their toes up.
I just hated that it meant we weren’t anywhere near being friends.
We might never get there, either. Because friends sure as hell didn’t kiss each other like that.
A thump brought my attention back around to the fire escape, with my gun up and armed, ready to shoot whoever or whatever was scaling up the ladder. A duffel bag had come first, coated with dust and blood, but what came next practically knocked me on my ass.
“Still getting around, I see,” she said, brushing some rust from her black jeans before she stood upright, smiling with no small amount of venom.
Her hair was different, short now like Audrey Hepburn’s Roman Holiday pixie cut, though judging from its messy appearance I was betting it had been shaved at some point and was now starting to fill in again.
