“Really? Then maybe you can explain it to me ‘cause I don’t understand it at all.”

He doesn’t answer at first. I think he’s going to ignore my outburst, but then he’s talking soft and low.

“It’s because you’re worried it makes you weak. You’re afraid and that’s embarrassing enough as it is, but what you’re afraid of is even worse. You’re afraid that you care. That you have something to lose. There’s a lot of angry and a lot more ugly out there and most of it wants to destroy, steal, kill, or just plain ruin anything and everything we have the gall to give a shit about. So in a way, yeah, how you feel about him does make you weak and that’s embarrassing for fighters like you and I.”

He glances over at me, his face striking in the glowing yellow light of the fading sun. His eyes are strange to me. Maybe it’s a trick of the light or maybe it’s a trick of this life, but they’re warmer than I’ve ever seen them. More genuine.

“It’s dangerous for us to love anyone,” he says, his voice deep. Husky.

Horrifying.

My stomach drops out. I’ll go look for it later somewhere in the basement of the building beneath me, but for now I feel the hollow space where it’s supposed to be. My pure fear and anxiety must register on my face because Vin laughs, shaking his head and turning away. When he glances at me sideways with that sly grin of his, the one that’s pure hotness and sex appeal, I relax a little. He looks like himself again.

“Calm down, Kitten. I’m not in love with you.”

“I—I didn’t think—” I stutter, flustered and confused.

“Yes, you did. You definitely thought it.”

I smack him hard on the arm. “Well, the way you said it was pretty leading!”

“I meant it the way it sounded. I love you.”

I am so lost.

“What the hell is happening?” I ask weakly.

“I’m not in love with you, all right? Take it easy. I’m shockingly advanced. I can have a soft spot for a woman without have a hard one for her too, you get me?”

“Gross.”

“So, yeah, I love you, Kitten,” he says plainly. “And that’s embarrassing for me but I’m dealing with it.”

“You’re dealing with it better than I’m dealing with Ryan.”

“It’s because it’s different. The way you feel about him, it’s soft and it’s hard.”

“Quit saying it like that.”

“Quit being a prude. Sex isn’t dirty.” He winks at me. “Not unless you want it to be.”

“I will leave,” I warn him. “I will stand up right now and leave this place forever.”

“No, you won’t.”

“How do you know I won’t?”

“You won’t because you missed me. You’re happy being here.”

He’s right—I feel the most at ease I have in a long time. I feel centered. Safe. I feel like he doesn’t want anything from me that I can’t give or anything that I want to give but I’m not sure how. Being with Vin is… I don’t know. It’s good. Like being alone without being lonely.

“I’m right, aren’t I?”

“I hate you,” I tell him, looking away.

He nudges my shoulder with his. “You love me too, Kitten.”

“Shut up.”

He slings his arm around my shoulders, pulling me in close to him. “Are you going to ask what you’re dying to ask?”

“I don’t want to.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’ll probably lie to me.”

He chuckles, the sound vibrating through his chest and into my shoulder tucked against him. “You’re tougher than that. Ask anyway.”

“If it comes down to it, who will you side with? Me or Marlow?”

He sighs with his whole body. I feel his chest expand against my shoulder. His hand squeezes me to him once, hard and brief, before going lax again.

“I don’t know.”

I nod, not surprised and not mad. I’m not even a little bit hurt because I get it. I understand being torn between two choices, none of which seem like good ones. I get trying to find loyalty inside yourself when you’ve never needed to know it before.

Vin and I, we’re a lot alike. We’re loners at heart. He may surround himself with people but he doesn’t align himself with them. For as much as he connects to them, he may as well be alone. But now the world is changing and it’s asking more from both of us. It’s forcing people into our space, into our lives. Neither of us is good at being cornered or pressured. Odds are we’ll lash out eventually.

Or run.

Chapter Ten

I leave Vin to sit on his perch on his castle, pondering its fate and his. From the roof I spotted Ryan down in the gardens so I make my way down to him. He’s wandering around, checking out what’s growing, even pulling a stray weed here and there like he knows what he’s doing. The movement gives me a weird feeling of déjà vu.

“How do you know you’re not uprooting a carrot when you do that?” I ask him.

He smiles when he turns to face me. “Carrots don’t flower.”

“Could be a tomato.”

“They grow above ground. All these years on your own and you don’t know much about gardening, do you?”

I shrug. “I was lucky. I had Crenshaw. Where did you learn?”

“Crenshaw.”

“Seriously?”

“He’s been teaching me for years. I’ve been learning about medicine too. I had to with Kevin and what he did at the Arena. The stuff I brought you for your arm, he and I brewed that together.”

“So that’s what all the ‘master’ and bowing stuff was about at his house?”

Ryan nods. “I’m his apprentice.”

“Huh.”

“What?”

“Nothing. It’s weird. He never offered to teach me.”

“He didn’t offer to teach me either. I asked. But he’d never show you anyway. He said you don’t have the patience.”

“When did you two talk about me?”

Ryan tosses the weed out across the open grass. “The day you were a jerk to him.”

I tense at the memory but I don’t argue with him. I was there, I know what I did. “I left you guys alone for like two minutes. Did you spend the whole time talking ugly about me while I stood right there?”

“‘She doesn’t have your patience, Helios,’” he says in a nearly perfect Crenshaw drawl that makes me grin. “‘It is why I never bothered to instruct her.’ That’s how much we talked about you.”

“That’s it? Really? You didn’t say anything about me at all?”

He grins. “I said you had other redeeming qualities that made up for your lack of patience.”

“Like what?”

“Like strength. Intelligence. Bravery. Humor.”

“Pft,” I scoff. “I am not funny.”

“I think you are.”

“I think you’re laughing at me more often than with me.”

He shrugs. “You’re still funny. And sweet, too.”

“This is getting really far-fetched.”

“What are you doing out here?” he asks, coming to stand in front of me.

I look at the edge of the field where it meets the water. Where the wet green grass turns to brown mud in a perfect rectangle that’s just long enough.

The laughter he built inside of me slips away.

“I came to say goodbye to someone,” I say hoarsely.

“Who is it?”

“Nats.”

“I’m so sorry, Joss. Do you want company?”

“I’m not going over there.”

“Okay. What are you going to do?”

“I never got to bury my parents,” I blurt out, my eyes still on the mound. I can feel Ryan’s surprise in the air around us, but he stays silent. Waiting. “I was too young to do it alone and I didn’t go back into the house after it happened. I was hiding in my dad’s car for a long time. Days. I probably would have died in there, but eventually a family found me. It was a mom and a dad and two kids. Both boys. They took me with them. It was stupid because I was worthless. I could barely walk I was so weak and I didn’t speak a word. Not for weeks. The first time I spoke was to tell them zombies were in the building.” I swallow hard, remembering how my throat hurt as I screamed, using my voice for the first time in too long. Using it too hard. Too late. “They all died. Even the boys. I didn’t see it because I ran. I left them. I tried to warn them, but I left them. Two more groups took me in after that. Two more times I saw everyone around me die. Torn apart the way Bryan tore apart that girl in the showers. I stopped talking again. I got quieter. Faster. I started moving alone because packs will get you heard and get you killed. People are dead weight. Even me. I knew I was worthless to whoever picked me up, so I stopped letting them. I started running from people and zombies and animals. Everything. Nothing was safe. I knew I had to be smart. I had to be fast and silent. A ghost.”