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“You heard me.”
I hated how calm he was about this. I hated how cool and collected he was. How could he not be freaking out? Did he even know what he was saying? Did he even hear himself?
“Are you…are you making fun of me?” I asked, furrowing my brows.
I glanced at the closed door behind him, wishing I could send him away with just my mind. I didn’t appreciate what he was doing, and I wasn’t sure what time Rocky would be here, but I didn’t want Kazu screwing it up. I had finally found the courage to do this, and now, it was going to be sabotaged.
“I would never kid about something like this,” he said. And the crazy thing was, I actually believed him.
“W-why?” I wished I could stop the stutter in my voice, but I couldn’t seem to control it, regardless of any effort on my part. “Why would you — you don’t like me.”
He gave me a long look. “What does that have to do with anything?” he asked.
I blinked once, twice. “I don’t know, sensei!” I exclaimed, throwing my arms out. Any semblance of control I thought I had completely went out that window I had just looked out of. “If you’re being serious, something like sex is a big deal, and I’d imagine you’d actually have to like the person in order to participate in the activity in the first place.”
His dark eyes trailed over my face. “I forget how truly inexperienced you are,” he said, and while his tone lacked any sort of emotion to it, I couldn’t help but think there was some kind of underlying criticism to it. “Tell me, Embyrlyn. The Light Bringer you bind yourself to, do you think he willlikeyou?”
I opened my mouth to respond before shutting it and looking away. In truth, I hadn’t thought much about it.
Kazu’s eyes widened. “Surely you don’t think it’ll be Dade,” he said. He clicked his tongue against his teeth, eyes flashing with icy rain. “Don’t be naive, Embyrlyn. Even if that was the case, the Dade you know is gone. He’s too consumed by his desire for revenge. Or do you forget how he left you in that training area? Weren’t you bound with silver…silver he put on your wrists? Isn’t that why you have those scars?”
Each word was like a blade slicing my skin so thinly, it didn’t hurt until they all hurt.
“That’s right,” Kazu continued, like he wasn’t tearing me to shreds with a thousand paper cuts. Like he wasn’t shattering my heart. “You tried to stop him. You thought your love for him would be enough to keep him here, to make him give up his quest for revenge. But the truth is, he never loved you. He never will. And even still, you hold out hope for him. I don’t understand why you would weaken yourself to that when you have all the potential in the world and youwasteit for someone who could never possibly deserve it. Do you regard yourself with such little self-respect that you would pine away for someone who wouldn’t even say goodbye to you?”
I sucked in a breath. Tears fell down my cheeks. I couldn’t stop them. I wasn’t sure I even wanted to put the effort into trying. I didn’t think it would be worth it.
“Why are you being so cruel?” I asked. My voice was cold like marble. I forced myself to look at him, and even though I saw him as little more than a blur through the tears that kept coming, I refused to look away.
“Someone has to make you see the truth of it all,” Kazu said. “And no one else is willing to step up. I never wanted to be the person who took your light away, Embyrlyn. Why do you think I’ve avoided you for so long?”
My eyes widened. The tears stopped suddenly for the time being.
“When I first met you at fourteen, you were so frustratingly emotional and hopeful and positive,” he continued, his voice low like the wind. “You had no idea what you were in for. Why Master Grey recruited you, I don’t know. I know how intelligent you are. And I know you’re skilled enough to take care of yourself. Your strength is immeasurable. And you learn quickly. But you don’t have the proper temperament to be an Elite squad member.”
“And what sort of temperament is that?” I asked.
He paused. “Jaded,” he said. “Cruel. The knowledge that you will no longer be ignorant to the atrocities that make up this world, but you must also carry this burden because to share it with someone outside the special teams would be cruel as well. You shouldn’t know the truth of the world.” He shook his head, spikey white hair following the graceful movement. “I don’t understand how you’ve managed to retain your positive outlook on people who don’t deserve it, on this world that doesn’t deserve it, when you’ve already seen so much. And the worst part? You haven’t seen anything yet. But this mission…it willruinyou. And that’s something I never wanted to be part of.”
“Then why are you here?” I asked, searching those stormy eyes for any hint of an answer.
Kazu pressed his lips together before releasing them. Something about him…softened, which sounded ridiculous when it came to Kazu, even though his posture was terrible despite his height and he always seemed nonchalant and lazy about everything. But he softened just now, and it was both strange and endearing. I wished he had more of an opportunity to soften more.
This whole being a captain within the Elite ranks must really take its toll on him, and I hadn’t realized that until just now.
“Because I’m still your captain,” he said. “And you are my responsibility, whether I want you to be or not.”
My face reacted defensively, before the words settled down. “That doesn’t mean you have to be such a martyr about this particular instance,” I said. I glanced down at my fingernails and began to play with a hangnail. “Rocky already said he’d —“
“I don’t give a fuck about Rocky,” Kazu interrupted, eyes flashing a warning, though how I offended him, I wasn’t sure. “I don’t want him anywhere near you. He’s isn’t your captain. He isn’t responsible for you in any way. There’s no reason to allow him this.”
“And I should allowyou?” I asked.
I still couldn’t believe something like this was happening. He had to be drunk or under some kind of spell. Maybe he wasn’t joking, but he couldn’t actually be serious.
“I’m your only logical choice,” he said.
I wasn’t sure what to think of that. I needed to catch my breath, to regulate it, because it kept slipping from my grasp, and even though I did everything I could to do something about it, I found I couldn’t. I kept looking at Kazu, which was the worst things I could do, because I caught his stormy gaze and I was paralyzed, unable to look away from him, from his beautiful gaze, from the effect those eyes had on me in the first place.
