Chapter 15
Serafina
He doesn’t speak, so of course, I don’t, either. Not until we’re back in my room.
“Do you mind?” he asks, nodding toward the dresser. We’re both drenched, water pooling beneath our feet, every inch of us claimed by the storm.
“They’re your clothes.” I shrug, stepping into the bathroom to grab a towel. My fingers tighten around the soft fabric as I try to wring out my hair.
When I return, he’s pulling his shirt over his head. The fabric clings for a moment before giving way, and then it’s on the floor.
If I thought my heart was racing before, it’s nothing compared to now. The sight of him—bare, and raw, and unguarded—it’s a jolt to my system. A spark of something starting in my core and radiating through every part of me.
My grip loosens on the towel.
His toned skin gleams under the low light, every ridge of his defined abs cutting shadows I can’t seem to look away from. My gaze dips lower, trailing the dark line of hair leading down, down—stop.
Heat floods my cheeks as I wrench my eyes upward, focusing on the black lines of his tattoo.
A tattoo that’s far larger than I originally thought.
Barbed thorns cover his torso, stretching over his pecs, his ribs, his sides.
Sharp edges etched into his skin as if meant to ward off anyone who dares come too close.
It winds onto his back, and my eyes find the mirror in the corner of the room, the mirror that gives me a full view of how he looks from behind.
My breath catches in my throat.
Scars. So many scars.
Some are faint, faded over time, barely noticeable unless the light catches them just right, but others are deeper. Angrier. Ridges of puckered skin, thick and brutal. But my attention snags on the jagged scar that curves over his left shoulder blade, its edges uneven as if torn rather than cut.
He looks up and follows my gaze to the mirror. He doesn’t move; he doesn’t breathe. But then he pulls a dry shirt over his head, hiding what was just revealed.
He turns to leave.
“Wait,” I say because he can’t leave.
Not now.
Not after what I’ve just seen, this piece of him that he keeps hidden. He stops but doesn’t face me. His shoulders rise then fall. Rise, then fall in steady, measured breaths.
“Who?” I say—no, I demand. “Who did that to you?”
I step closer, the space between us narrowing. Then closer still, until I’m just behind him. My hands ache to reach out, to touch him, to trace those scars through the fabric that now shields them, scars that must have caused him unspeakable pain.
“It was a long time ago.” His voice is low and rough. He still doesn’t face me.
“That’s not what I asked.”
“No, it’s not,” he says, the words clipped. “But it’s the only answer you’re going to get.”
He finishes the journey to the door.
“Jax.” My voice cracks on his name, and once again, he stills.
“Just stay. Please. Stay because tonight…it’s been pleasant.
Far more pleasant than I thought it would be, and I’m not ready for it to end, not yet.
I won’t ask about your scars. You can do the asking. I’ll do the talking. Just…don’t go.”
Gods, I’m pathetic. Beyond pathetic, and I hate it. But not as much as I’d hate it if he walked out that door right now.
I take another step toward him, and his shoulders seem to lose a fraction of their tension.
“Please, I’m…I’m not ready to be alone again.”
He turns slowly, his entire face changing the moment our eyes meet. His lips part, he inhales a breath, and then he nods.
Without saying a word, he moves toward the bed, hesitating just before it. He kicks off his boots and settles on top of the mattress.
His long frame eats up the space, and he laces his fingers behind his head, lying back against the pillow.
“By all means, make yourself comfortable.” I roll my eyes but smile regardless. I smile because he stayed.
He smirks—it’s a fleeting thing, but it was there.
Grabbing the chair from the desk, I drag it closer to the bed, its legs scraping faintly against the floor. I settle into the seat.
“What was your first trial like?”
His question startles me, and I’m not sure what I was expecting, where I thought this conversation would go, but it certainly wasn’t here.
“I…uh…I try not to think about the first trial,” I admit because memories of that day still haunt me.
The screams of the ones who didn’t make it through.
The smell of blood and sweat, the sound of bones cracking against stone, but most of all how close I had been to joining the dead if it hadn’t been for Char.
“You don’t have to—”
“No, I want to tell you,” I interrupt, surprised by my own admission. But him asking…I need to believe it means something.
I remember when I first arrived and there were so many books scattered across the desk. Books about the history of the trials.
He was reading them.
Studying them.
And maybe, just maybe, he’s starting to question the way things are. The way his ancestors designed this brutal, broken world. Maybe, after what Ajja told him, he wants to change it. Figure out a way to save the planet and its people.
“Just give me a moment to gather my thoughts.”
He nods, and I stare past him, at the wall behind him, needing the distance, needing to avoid the intensity of his golden eyes.
“None of us were told what to expect. Only that our strength and resilience would be tested.” My voice is flat, detached.
The first trial is designed to weed out the weak, kill off the sick, but Jax knows that, so there’s no sense in repeating it.
I continue staring at the wall instead of him.
“I was always a bit smaller than the others. Weaker,” I say, and it’s the truth.
My early entry into this world did me no favors.
“No one expected me to make it through. Hell, I didn’t even expect to make it through. ”
My eyes flash to his, and his brow furrows slightly, but he doesn’t speak, doesn’t push. He waits.
I take a shaky breath, suddenly feeling suffocated by his gaze, and my fingers grip the edge of the chair.
“I shouldn’t have made it. If it hadn’t been for Char, I wouldn’t be here.”
Char.
When was the last time I had thought of him? The man I owe so much to? The man I owe everything to? The man who’s back in Village 28 waiting for me?
Ryjax tilts his head slightly, but still he doesn’t interrupt.
I clear my throat. “There was this moment,” I say, my voice even quieter than before, the memory forcing images into my mind, images I’d rather never see again.
“We were racing through the maze the trial coordinators had crafted, and there was this one part near the end where you had to climb. Climb and climb until your limbs ached, until every muscle burned with an intensity that made you nearly blind. And if you were to slip, lose your footing, and fall to the ground below? Well, there was already a pile of bodies there waiting, broken and lifeless, and those who survived the fall? They were dragged off by the Enforcers, anyway, marked for execution. And I…I slipped.”
He removes his hands from behind his head and props himself on his forearm so he’s facing me more straight on.
“I thought that was it. I was sure I was going to die. But Char, he insisted on making the climb behind me. I told him he was being crazy. That I would only slow him down. But he refused to listen. He refused to move until I did. So I went ahead of him. And I was close. So close to making it on my own. So close to proving I could do it, that I could survive this world, but then…”
My hands shake, the memory painful for so many reasons.
“It all happened so fast. I still can’t make sense of it. But I must have grabbed onto a loose rock, and I started to fall.”
I shiver, remembering the feeling of complete weightlessness, knowing what it meant.
“But then Char grabbed my hand and threw me over his shoulder like I was nothing. He kept going. He climbed for the both of us. I’ll never be able to repay him for that.”
To hell with the trials.
To hell with this world.
Because how was I allowed to make it through when so many didn’t?
Not only did you need to survive the trial, but only a certain number of us were allowed to make it through.
I remember watching the faces of others right after they sprinted across the finish line, a line my pathetic ass was literally carried across.
The smile that formed when they thought they’d made it, that they’d get to live for at least another three years, only to disappear when the Enforcers still came for them.
There were three hundred and sixty-two of us at the start of that trial…but by the end, there were only two hundred and fifty.
I never deserved to make it through that maze. Not really.
But I did.
So many were marked for death, but I wasn’t.
“Serafina,” Ryjax says, his tone far too soothing. “It doesn’t matter how you made it. It only matters that you did.”
“And what?” I snap, my voice sharper than I intended, but this is how it needs to be because he still doesn’t get it.
He still doesn’t understand. “You think it got any easier after that? Got better? The first trial was only the beginning.” I shake my head, frustration and bitterness lacing my words.
“The trials aren’t even what hold the most danger. It’s the time between them.”
His brow furrows even more.
“Do you even realize what the trials cause?” I lean forward.
“How they impact those of us living in the villages? They breed disunity. Distrust. People form alliances, target those they think have the best chance of surviving. They kill before the trials even start, just to make sure their odds are better.”
His lips press into a firm line. “Killing between the trials is illegal. The Enforcers—”