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ChapterFifteen
ELSY
“Does this mean I get to open my box now?” I ask Key. I’m draped across him with my head on his chest and staring at the small box on my dresser.
I gasp when in a flash he’s across the room and back in the bed. “Does that not make you dizzy?” I sit up as he opens the box. “Even if you can move fast, I don’t understand how you don’t pass out.”
“I heal faster too. I’m sure that has something to do with it.” He pulls the ring from out of the box, and I lift my hand for him to slide it onto my finger.
I know the ring. I’ve seen it before because his mom Shelly once showed it to me. It belonged to Keaton’s great-grandmother. The center has a round dark blue sapphire that’s surrounded by diamonds. It reminds me of Key’s eyes when they aren’t lit up.
“Your mom showed me this ring once,” I say as I admire it.
I remember it so clearly because we’d been in her bedroom, and she insisted on me wearing one of her pearl necklaces for our debate tournament that afternoon. She said they had always been lucky for her. She was wearing them when she met Dr. Lone. Though he hadn’t been a doctor yet. After she helped me put the pearls on, for some reason, she pulled out the ring and told me that it had belonged to Dr. Lone’s mother. She held it out in her hand as if she wanted me to take it, but when I started to reach for it, she pulled it back.
“She did?” Keaton’s brows lift in surprise.
“When I went to touch it, she pulled it back and said something about it not being time.” Keaton’s lips pull in a half smile.
“The ring is mine. It was passed down to me after my grandmother died. I was only about seven at the time she passed, but I always remember my mom telling me about her and my grandfather. I never got to meet him, and my memories of her are a bit fuzzy with how young I’d been, but I remember how she talked about my grandfather with such love. She told me I’d give it to the girl I’d marry one day. At the time I gagged because girls were gross.”
I snort a laugh thinking about a small Keaton having no interest in girls. Shelly has shown me pictures of Keaton when he was little, and he always had a book in his hand. There was no time for playground crushes.
“Then you showed up at school, and I knew Grams was right. I went home that first day and told my mom I knew who would be getting that ring and she needed to hand it over. She of course rolled her eyes at me and said I wasn’t getting my hands on that ring until I was eighteen. She thought it was still too young, but those were the terms.” His face softens.
“Then she met you too and realized I might not be as crazy as I’d sounded that day.”
“Keaton Lone, crazy? I’ll never believe it.”
“Right? Except when it comes to you.” He chuckles. “She should have known that day when I told her. I’ve always gone after the things I’ve wanted.” I lean forward and press my mouth against his.
I don’t think he understands what this means to me. Or maybe he does. This ring holds a family history, and that’s something I don’t really have. Mine was taken away in the blink of an eye, and I’ve spent my life wishing for something like that again.
“What else can you do, Key? You move fast, you’re strong, and you heal quickly. No flying, right?”
“I can fly.” He smirks. “In the Lone G65OER.”
I burst into laughter.“Right.” I smack his arm. “I mean besides the family's fancy-ass plane.”
“Planes,” he corrects, needling me.
I missed our banter so damn much. All those small things add up to make up the person I love. It wasn’t until it was gone that I truly realized how much moments like this meant to me.
“Everything is just heightened. I can see farther, hear better, smell everything.” He shakes his head. “All of it. My senses are on overdrive, and it took a while to get used to it and learn to turn it off and on.”
My mind flashes back to this morning when I thought for a second that Gray smelled me. He asked who I’d been with, and he must already know Keaton’s scent. It was Jade’s he’d caught wind of, and those eyes of his flashed. Interesting.
“I don’t know if that’s badass or scary,” I admit.
“I agree, and so did my father. Not only were my reactions too volatile and couldn’t be isolated, but they also worried what might happen if the wrong person got dosed with it. It’s why they put the project on ice. Or at least my father had for a moment. I'm not sure what John did because I think that’s what killed him in the end. Clearly, Gray has been dosed, but I don’t know how or why.”
“Killed him? But I thought you said it helps heal.”
“That’s my experience, but Gray isn’t too forthcoming with information.” Keaton’s frustration starts to show.
“You really think John Malice would dose his own son?”
“No,” Keaton says without hesitation.
