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I didn’t know how she would react next. She might unleash her anger on me, beating at me with her clenched fists. I wouldn’t even try to protect myself.
Or she might just stand there, staring at me, her pain drilling into me harder than anything she could dish out physically.
“Why did you tell them not to inform me you were still alive?” Maddy said.
I couldn’t bear to face the pain in her eyes. Pain I had caused. I looked away.
“I didn’t want you to see me like this,” I said.
“Like what?”
I turned my face toward her. There was no avoiding her now.
“Like this,” I said.
I gauged the look in her eye as she looked me over. Her eyes ran over the burns wrapped around my chin and across my cheek.
She reached up to touch my face, but I pulled away.
“Does it hurt?” she said.
Agony. But being away from you hurts more.
“It’s fine,” I said.
“You’re as handsome as you’ve always been,” she said.
A hot wad formed at the back of my throat.
“It really doesn’t bother you?” I said.
She shook her head.
“The only thing that matters to me is you’re alive,” she said.
I smiled, but the warmth didn’t return to her face.
“But that’s not the real reason you avoided me, is it?” she said.
The hardness returned to her voice.
I scanned her face, looking for hints about how much she knew. Stari knew almost everything. Could she have told Maddy?
I cleared my throat.
“How, uh, did the mission go?” I said.
“The mission went well,” Maddy said. “But an innocent Yayora soldier died, pretending to be me. She was sacrificed so I might live.”
“The Yayora are at war. Sometimes tough decisions have to be made.”
“And you know something about tough decisions, don’t you?” she said.
The blood drained from my face. I glanced at the empty doorway. If I ran now, I could escape that question and the conversation it would lead to.
It wasn’t going to be much fun.
Stari had told her everything—everything she knew, at least.
