Chapter 20 Kali
KALI
Iwiped the condensation off the mirror hanging above the sink, the ceramic bowl installed atop the black-and-white marble counter. Although cracked and aged, it was spotless, and the faucet sparkled in the late morning light.
Clutching the edges of the sink, I stared at the pale ghost with sunken bags under her eyes in the mirror. My reflection mimicked the tilt of my head, drawing my attention to the shallow cut on my cheek and the redness from the scalding shower.
Wet hair hung heavy on my shoulders, the clumped strands soaking the towel secured around my chest and weighing as much as the recollection of last night.
Gedeon was alive.
He had lied about his death.
Then had rescued Zion and me from the ambush in Ilasall.
Chased me.
And finally, fucked me.
Probably Zion too, based on how I’d found them twined together in the middle of the night. A nightmare had kicked me out of my dreams.
But it was the warmth radiating off Gedeon and seeping into me that had dried my cold sweat and invited me back to sleep. The scent wafting off his black hoodie I’d stolen had ceased being enough once I could actually feel him beside me.
Still, I’d awakened in bed alone later this morning.
I’d hoped we would talk it out, but both men had fled my wrath instead of pleading for my forgiveness.
I doubted they would get it now. Gedeon had pretended to be dead, while Zion had decided not to divulge this tidbit of information, which he’d apparently been privy to.
The lack of surprise he’d displayed at Gedeon’s return couldn’t be refuted.
I yanked Gedeon’s hoodie off the hook next to the mirror.
The black material fell into a messy heap on the tiles, and I kicked the fabric, sending it flying to the other side of the bathroom.
Seeing his clothing strewn around instead of neatly folded or hung was surely going to put a dent in his ego.
Grabbing the scissors off the counter, I brought the blades to my hair. A little over seven months had passed since I’d been kidnapped and flung into a world I’d had no clue about. The time had come for the extra four inches or so my strands now boasted to go.
“Wait.”
A shape appeared in the mirror. I tracked Gedeon in his approach as he strode across the stupidly vast bathroom.
Dark worn boots, dark fitted jeans, a dark belt and dark long-sleeved shirt, three equally dark buttons at the top—he hadn’t changed at all.
Yet the clothing usually blending him with the surroundings couldn’t camouflage the intensity rippling in the shoulders rounded from years of training, the so-silent-it-made-you-question-your-hearing-ability steps, that one rogue lock of his obsidian waves swaying across his forehead, as usual.
“Let me.” He plucked the scissors out of my grasp, switching the instrument for another—a wide-toothed comb. “Tell me if it hurts,” he instructed before beginning to brush my hair.
I barely contained my snort. It had hurt for the last three months. An impossible-to-unravel knot would be less painful than living with the knowledge you’d killed one of the two people you loved.
And not intentionally.
It’s not your fault; just an accident, Zion had repeated time and time again, as if it could make me feel better. Especially when I would find him straying to Gedeon’s bedroom every other night.
Finished with detangling my hair, Gedeon moved the mass to fall along my back. “What length do you want?”
“I don’t care,” I snapped. “I just want it gone.”
His reflection’s jaw ticked, and a wicked sort of satisfaction unfurled in my stomach.
And instantly soured.
Hoarding anger was childish; I knew that. Same as inciting it in others.
The bruise on Gedeon’s cheek doused the flurry of emotions wreaking havoc in my soul, and I squared my shoulders. “Where have you been?”
He focused on arranging my locks. “In the shadows.”
“In the shadows,” I echoed, incredulity shining through.
“Yes.” Without meeting my stare in the mirror, he made the first cut. The snip of steel abrading steel elicited a shiver to skate down my spine. “Our compound is essentially a city, so I blended in. Stayed on the outskirts.”
I shook my head in disbelief. “But you stalked us.”
“Don’t move.” He reproached, rearranging my hair anew. “I had to make sure you were safe.”
Another snip, the sound so jarring in the rapidly cooling bathroom that I startled.
“Then why didn’t you come back?”
“Because I saw how well you two were managing the compound. How you prepared for war and navigated any challenges popping up.” A cold edge seared my flesh as he wielded the scissors.
“Me showing up all nice and alive would have ruined things. Everyone thought I was taken by Ilasall. If I had simply marched back, they would have suspected something. Would you accept someone who could potentially have been brainwashed by the city into your leadership ranks?” Rough calluses scraped my back as he flicked off my hair clippings.
“But staying away from you had ceased being an acceptable option since the day the doc cleared me. I had to make sure you were doing well. So I followed you.”
A scoff slipped past my defenses. “We are everything but well, Gedeon.”
His fingers dipped beneath my towel, prompting a twitch in my pelvis.
“We have talked about this. All I want is for you to reach your dreams. And then find new ones to chase. If I have to stand aside to increase the probability of it happening, I will. But what I will not relent on is your safety. I will protect you, Kali.” He maneuvered my head into the position he wanted, and I swallowed roughly. “Always.”
“No. You can’t say that.” I clutched my towel, hoping it would serve as a sufficient distraction to stave off my tears. “If you cared about us, you wouldn’t have told me to run.”
The sprint from the clearing I’d stabbed him in to the compound had been a blur, the minutes drenched in murkiness. The memory inaccessible, even now. My mind had balked at recording it.
“I trusted you, did as told, and what came next?” I took a shaky breath.
“Lies. Just lies. Zion told me you’d passed away in minutes.
I didn’t get to say goodbye to you. Instead, I had to lie myself.
Whenever someone asked, I had to say that I’d left before the fake soldiers came.
And then nod along to Zion’s story of how Ilasall’s military incapacitated him long enough for them to take you.
” I raised my right forearm, the tattoo distorted in the mirror, its ink facing the wrong direction.
“I got your mark, the symbol of your trust in me, but how can I trust you? Both of you. You lied to me, Gedeon. Hiding in the shadows is a lie, only with a pretty ribbon on top.”
“This lie was a necessity,” he said. “It helped you to unite our people. I didn’t keep you in the dark for any other reason than to increase your chances of success and, in turn, the probability of your survival.
” He gripped my shoulders. “If you knew I was alive, would you have been able to act convincing enough to make everyone else believe I was gone? Would you have been able to persuade the people who had split into factions to return? Would you have been able to rally everyone despite our depleted reserves, the deficit in med supplies, and the food shortages? Would you have been able to not look for me and avoid exposing the charade?”
My intrinsic itch to protest lost the battle. “No.”
Because I would have sneaked out of bed every midnight and roamed the compound in search of him. I would’ve begged Zion to tell everyone the truth. I would’ve slipped in the conversations, unveiling the lies we’d crafted.
False words were not my specialty. Speaking them to our friends had felt like a shard of glass carving out my insides, one slice per each sentence.
“Exactly, Kali.” His thumbs kneaded my muscles.
“I know you. Zion knows you. And the burden of this lie was one I refused to load onto you. You can despise me, but I will never push you more than you can take. If you knew about me being alive and had to live as if the opposite was true, it would have broken you.”
My tongue thickened. “But not knowing broke me just the same.”
“And I will spend the rest of my days trying to make it up to you. I will gladly sacrifice anything, and I do mean anything, for you. You want the compound? It’s yours.
You want my position, my power? I have already relinquished it to you.
My life? Take it.” Removing his hands from me, leaving my exposed skin to freeze from the loss of his touch, he resumed shortening my hair.
“I just— I don’t know how to act around you.
You are the most exquisite, enthralling creature I have ever laid my eyes upon.
” He licked his thick and fluffy lips, and the leftover moisture glistened in the sunlight.
“I want you both, you and Zion, I want you mine, and I want you happy.”
I sniffled. “Is that why you left us? To make us happy?”
“I didn’t leave you. Not entirely,” he said, chopping off sections of my hair.
“Who do you think pushed the patrols into Zion’s path so he could drag them to his underground?
Do you really think they happened to lurk far from the city gates by accident?
Or why Ilasall has never searched for their bodies? I watched over you. Only from afar.”
“It doesn’t count, Gedeon. Not when I’d knelt before your funeral fire and threw my letter into the blaze. Not when I’d observed the ashes floating in the air and imagined them taking me on the ride so I could at least talk to you one last time.”
I couldn’t convince myself to share that I’d cried a month ago because Gedeon’s shirts had ceased smelling like him. That last week, I’d curled up on his bed and stared out the window for hours. That Zion had come in after me and held me close while he trembled.
I kept it all inside. Swallowed it up. And pretended I was stronger than I actually was.
Because yes, Gedeon was right. Before he’d departed, our people had split into two groups: the first eager to storm the city, proclaiming Gedeon would never do it, and the second seeking a quiet life, declaring the cities would leave us alone if we renounced our intentions of dismantling the governments.
The tale about Gedeon’s imprisonment in Ilasall had done the trick of merging the groups back into one.
As Gedeon had once said, war was largely a numbers game. And we had been losing the battle before it’d even started by missing the signs of a civil war nipping at our heels.
The constant alertness, the endless training since you could walk, the fight for resources, they all had left an imprint on everyone. The mental exhaustion had reached the highest peak.
The breaking point.
But the three months without Gedeon had made our people reconsider their actions.
His tactic had worked.
A puff of warm air grazed my neck as Gedeon blew the clippings off me.
“If you need to blame someone, feel free to tell everyone I’m the villain.
” He pressed the softest lips in existence to my temple, and the world tilted off its axis.
“But please, remember I’m your villain.” He kissed behind my ear, and I closed my eyes at his proximity, his caress, his whisper. “Only yours and Zion’s.”