Chapter 12 #3
The threat drifts between us, like a fishing line through a lightless sea, ready to tangle with one wrong move.
Something in the room shifts – last night, I saved a person.
This morning, I’m harbouring a criminal.
Dawn has brought our illicit fraternization into harsh daylight, and I take her in for the first time in years.
Broad shoulders, sharp jawline, squinted, wary eyes.
We’ve always known Raven’s mask enchants her so no one can figure out her identity, but seeing her up close gives me my first chance to understand why.
Even when she doesn’t move, there’s a restlessness around her, like an illusion working to shift and contort.
When she turns away, I no longer remember the exact shape of her eyes, and when she covers herself with the blanket, I feel like I don’t remember her looking that small.
I reach into my bedside cabinet, rummaging until my hands brush the thing I was searching for.
I draw out a pair of handcuffs from my drawer that the police department gave to me as a joke on my eighteenth birthday. Before Raven can protest, I grab her left wrist and cuff it to the headboard.
‘Wh—’ Raven tugs against it, though her movements still seem weak with injury. ‘I’m not into BDSM, plus I can definitely break out of this. What’s the point?’
‘You can barely walk.’ I slide into bed beside Raven and unlock my phone. I need to tell Harper I’m not coming in today. There’s no way I’m leaving a criminal unsupervised in my home.
I search for Harper’s contact name, and feel a pair of eyes watching me closely.
I shift the screen away and go to press CALL, but Raven grabs the phone out of my hand before skin can touch glass. ‘Are you being serious right now?’ I demand.
‘Harper, your labmate?’ Raven snaps back. ‘How do I know you’re not reporting me?’
‘Not everything’s about you.’ I reach to grab the phone, but Raven stuffs it down her pyjama top and into her bra. ‘Come on, that’s so childish.’
‘Don’t care.’ Raven holds her free hand to her chest. ‘You handcuffed me so I can’t hurt you, now I get to confiscate your phone so you can’t report me to your Sentinel friends. Deal?’
I pause. Nothing’s stopping us from hurting each other, and I have the clear upper hand when I know exactly where to jam my elbow against Raven’s split skin. She’s clearly aware of the same thing, with her gaze guarded, brows pulled tight.
‘Fine. But we’re not bad people, you know. We save civilians – you’re the ones stealing moonstones that could jeopardize the country.’
Raven scoffs as she shuffles back into the blankets. ‘You work with the government. If you think the moonstones are dangerous in our hands, don’t you realize they’re also dangerous in theirs?’
‘The government is not as unstable as the Foxes. Plus, I do this because I actually am trying to protect people. We only step in where there’s a threat to the public.’
‘Oh, the government isn’t unstable, for sure. They just have complex international political feuds and an actively growing artillery.’ Raven rolls her eyes. ‘And you step in whenever the government tells you to. You’re as mercenary as we are – admit it.’
I want to snap back, but there’s no point arguing with someone who’s so fundamentally different from me.
Also, she’s not the most wrong.
The Sentinels’ continued existence relies on our compliance with the government’s regulations.
Back when Niko and Kiran helped the government stop the first climate protests, the government had barely trusted Sentinels any more than they did regular descendants – which is not very much at all.
As far as the authorities are concerned, we’re all just descendants with dangerous amounts of magic.
The only reason the Sentinels ever got the freedom we have is because of the careful contract Niko and Kiran drew up with the Descendant Department.
But that’s fine, because I trust them. We’ve always aligned with whatever the government told us to do, anyway. There’s no reason to doubt them.
Raven seems to sense my hesitation. ‘Broke your world a little?’
‘My world’s okay,’ I snap back. I fold my arms and settle into bed. Something itches at the back of my head, and when I go back to scratch it, a thought surfaces. ‘Wait, how’d you know Harper was my lab partner?’
Raven blinks. ‘Is it so weird to you that I track my Foxes? It’s kind of my job.’
‘I thought she was estranged from the clan.’ It slips from me instinctively, the excuse that’s been bumping around my head for the past two years.
‘Yeah, which makes it even more important that I keep an eye on her to make sure she doesn’t betray the clan now she’s defected.’
Oh. I hum and run my thumb across the hem of my blanket. There’s something weird in Raven’s voice when she talks about Harper, and I’m suddenly worried that I might get Harper in trouble, so I allow the topic to drift to something lighter. ‘Does she talk about me?’
‘Do you want her to?’ Raven raises a brow. ‘Thought you guys hated each other.’ She clears her throat suddenly. ‘From what I remember, anyway.’
‘I . . . Well.’ Between the gala night, the undercover almost-kiss and the night drive, there’s a burning knot in my gut that feels tight with a strange dissatisfaction.
I pick at the side of my cuticle. ‘I mean, she’s still spiky and awful, but she’s also kind of nice.
And I like the way she fights for what she believes in.
That she’s so unpredictable. So I . . .’
Raven watches me so closely that the air turns heavy with her attention. ‘You . . . ?’
‘I feel like sometimes, there’s something between us. More than friends.’ I swallow. How do I explain the gravitational force Harper has on me recently, like I’m being pulled into an orbit outside of my control? ‘I don’t know why I’m telling you this.’
In my head, Raven comes back with a quip about being mesmerizing enough to charm it out of me.
In reality, her gaze cuts away, her cheeks flushed above her mask. ‘Maybe you should talk to her about it.’
‘We used to hate each other, though.’
A mirthless laugh escapes Raven. ‘We hate each other right now and I’m in your bed. I think you have a weird relationship with the word “hate”.’
Touché.
I stare at the ceiling for so long that, when I turn, Raven is curled up, eyes closed, breathing slow.
Before I can stop myself, I reach for her mask.
It would be easy.
Instead, I hook a finger round Raven’s chain.
It looks like Harper’s.
Raven stirs. For once, there’s zero threat on her face as she snores in her blanket den. She looks almost normal – no more night wind in her hair, no more scrutinizing gaze mid-fight, no more wound-tight muscles trying to slam a blade into my gut.
Her hand hangs limply from the handcuff on the headboard, her wrist already marked raw where metal digs into skin.
I shift my hand from Raven’s necklace to her collarbone, where my phone has slipped out of her bra and peeks from the top of the pyjamas, and I edge my phone out without waking her up.
Then I reach over to the handcuff and unlock it, lower Raven’s hand gently back to bed, draw the blanket over her arm.
‘Sleep well,’ I murmur.