Chapter 21 #3
Lightning-quick, Lune grabs my collar and shoves me against a wall, our faces millimetres apart. ‘Kit, we’re professionals. Act like it.’ She speaks with her teeth gritted, her gaze intense.
‘Fine,’ I bite back, and throw up an illusion. I project Lune stabbing me with one of my daggers, and me staggering away with Lune in pursuit, both of us disappearing into the darkness.
By the time the illusion is done, we’re out of the doors. I support Lune with an arm over my shoulder, lowering her gently into the car. She’s turned deathly pale in the time taken to get here, and this reminds me of something all too sickening a few months ago.
‘Don’t die on me,’ I say as I start the car.
Lune laughs, the sound broken. When I glance in the rear-view mirror, she’s spilled across the backseat. ‘I feel like death keeps trying to come for me.’
The words hang in the air as her eyes flutter shut.
‘Lune!’ I snap. ‘Bunny. Tia. Stay awake, come on.’
No response. Fuck, okay. I floor the accelerator.
There’s only one way of doing this without incriminating myself, so I shuck my suit then call Niko, pretending that Tia called me when she was injured, and suddenly it’s a whole thing and she’s being whisked away from me.
The next time I get to see her, it’s through the glass window of the ward door.
She’s awake, scrolling through her phone, finger tapping restlessly against the steel bed frame.
With a deep inhale, I close my eyes and slip into the room. ‘Hey, thief.’ I shut the door behind me with a wincing smile. ‘Good attempt today, but I’m begging you to keep your day job.’
Tia scoffs and tucks her phone away. ‘I had it handled.’
‘No, you didn’t. I should have been smarter than trusting Miss Shiny Suit with Shiny Blasters Who Announces Her Presence Everywhere.’ I lean against the bed’s guardrail, feeling a smirk curl my lips unbidden.
‘I would have come out today fine if someone hadn’t shot me.’
‘Not so loud!’ I hiss, ignoring the way my chest is already warm with the banter in Tia’s voice.
Right up till now, we’ve been working together as Raven and Lune.
It’s different to be by her bedside, her hair undone, her shoulders soft and her guard down.
‘Sorry, but you scared me – it was instinct!’
‘So your instinct was to shoot blindly?’ Tia glares at me, her pretty face all twisted and upset and so cute when she’s pissed off.
It somehow annoys me more, to look at Tia and still feel affection despite the wound she left behind. A silence falls between us, once again.
‘The blueprints and papers are in the car,’ Tia says. ‘I—’
‘Tia, I don’t care about that. I care about you.’
Tia’s jaw shuts with a click. ‘I’m fine.’
‘You know it kills me,’ I say quietly. ‘Whenever I hurt you.’
Tia’s gaze softens. She looks away. ‘But it happens anyway.’
You are supposed to kill her, my brain deadpans, and I slap it silent. I’ll make a plan for that. It’s on my to-do list, and it very pointedly ends in Tia alive.
Tia sighs and rubs her eyes. ‘What do you want? It doesn’t matter how much I like you. The point is that this is too complicated. There’s too much between us.’
It doesn’t matter how much I like you. My heart thuds in my ears.
‘Fine, I’ll uncomplicate it for you.’ I hold a hand out. ‘I’m Harper Leong Rui En, intern at Lain Co. I’m also Raven, probationary leader of the Fox clan. I lead and protect the Foxes in my clan, because they’re my family.’
Tia stares at my outstretched hand. Our fingertips touch, and Tia slips her palm into mine. ‘I’m Tia Njauw, also an intern at Lain Co. Most of the public know me as Lune, one of three Sentinels. I work with the government to protect the country and its people, because this is my home.’
I shift my hand to lace my fingers with Tia’s, and she doesn’t stop me. ‘How much of that are you willing to put aside for this?’
Tia stays silent for several long beats. ‘We’re not that different, you know.’
‘Trying to kill each other isn’t enough opposition?’
‘Not that.’ Our hands stay locked, our thumbs exploring each other’s wrists, but not more.
‘A fighter without love is a brute. And you might be an asshole. You have a sharp tongue, and you’re a little mean if you want to be.
But no matter how much I look at you, all of you, I can’t see a brute.
I think we’re fighters who love other people, which means we’re not that different. ’
‘Yin-yang,’ I murmur on instinct. ‘Same but opposite.’
‘We belong to different worlds, and I think this is going to hurt us.’ Tia looks up at me, her face pale with exhaustion, though her eyes are gentle, seeking. ‘But if you’re okay with that . . .’
I almost laugh with relief, but I’m not clear yet. ‘Tia, I feel like I’m dying without you. I don’t think it can hurt any more.’
‘Me too,’ Tia whispers, and that’s apparently all I need to bury my face in her hospital blanket and burst into tears.
We spend the night sharing a pillow, ankles tangled, and, like writing a lab report, we lay out rules and procedures: no mixing work and personal life. No one else can know.
But the conclusion of the report, most importantly, is that no matter who we’re bound to, no matter who we’ve fought, even if it was each other – we come home together.
Even when identities were hidden and we fought vehemently, it was always Harper and Tia back at Lain, either arguing, or bantering, or lying in bed.
Maybe this should’ve been evident from the start. Still, it hits me now more than ever.
I shot you, I think, and you’re still here with me.
In the depths of the night, when Tia’s anaesthetic has carried her off to sleep, my phone buzzes.
CALENDAR REMINDER: TWO WEEKS
Two weeks. In the depths of my mind, I reach into the cobwebs of the day I’d received the mission six months ago. I’d set the reminder, just in case.
Tomorrow, there’s a meeting with the Elders and Nagas to hand over the moonstones. Ah Ma told me to arrive early, and anyone can guess why.
The Elders have also offered me another vial of poison for Tia. It’s sitting in my room, in my duffel bag.
My mind flashes with the memory of sinking the blade into Lune, the way she’d crumpled around me, the plea in her voice to keep her alive. My heart slams in my chest, and I find my palms suddenly sweaty, my lungs tight.
I can’t lose you.
But I know how it feels like, enough that I can pretend to.
If I can fake her death long enough for the Elders to pronounce me leader, then can they really rescind it if Tia just so happens to make it out alive?
And there’s other things. The blueprints sitting in my room, the contracts that Tia stole. I haven’t looked at them. We did it together. I need us to keep doing it together. We can figure it out after my assignment deadline, because Tia will still be here. Of course she will.
I’d protect you with all of me. I don’t know how biology works but my heart swears on all of it, fat, muscle, heartstrings, anything I feel, anything I can afford and beyond.
You’re naive, my brain spits back. The thought tightens my chest with panic.
I drift into restless sleep with my hand on Tia’s chest, counting her pulse like sheep against my fingertips. She’s alive, the sheep bleat as they jump over the fence.
But she’ll be dead thanks to you, a black sheep says, beady eyes cold and piercing.
In my dream, I shoot it.