10. CHAPTER 10 #3
Kira's hand slid across the table for him, but she stopped herself, closing her fist. Stories like this bound all the people of the empire together, but Kira and Zayne were not the same. If she didn't stay away from him, she'd become another flicker in the shadows.
“Those with the least amount of power pay the price for our dissidence.” Zayne felt the girl with no teeth watching him. “She had brown eyes. They were filled with tears when she died. And she suffered far more because of me.”
“Zayne...”
Hearing Kira say his name shook him. She only ever called him Sergeant Riven, or nothing at all.
He saw it then. All the damage wrought today.
The way Kira looked at him completely changed.
Not only had he saved her from Dr. Cooper, but now she saw all this woundedness and vulnerability that she must know he wanted to hide.
That damn doctor engineered this, and Zayne walked into the trap.
Kira would realize Zayne pretended to hate her to keep her from trusting him. So now she'd trust him even more. He failed so badly.
“That wasn't your fault,” Kira said.
“Of course, it was. Just like it'll be your fault when you get innocent people hurt by fighting a hopeless war. You can't win this battle against the Phaedra.” He didn't mean it. Whatever happened, it'd never be her fault.
“Maybe it mattered that someone tried to save her. That she wasn't alone in her final moments.”
“You can't ask her because she's dead.” He softened none of it for Kira, no matter how much he wanted to.
“You want the truth? I don't want your trust. I really don't. I'm a man of war.
It's worse than just taking life. It's an evil business. But I know that I can get you through this alive if you do as I say.”
Kira hummed. “Trust your orders but don't trust you.”
“Yes.”
She looked hard at him. “Did your father approve the reprogramming?”
The question knocked the wind from him. After all he told her, that was what she wanted to know? It stunned him so much that he didn't answer.
Kira's voice rose. Insistent. “Did your father let Dr. Cooper hurt you?”
Zayne furrowed his brows. “He ordered the reprogramming himself. He knew I needed it and without it, I'd get myself and other people killed.” To this day, he wasn't sure whether he believed that. It took years for him to claw his mind back from the reprogramming.
She shook her head. “It must have felt awful being stuck here and knowing your dad wasn't coming to help you.”
Even though she spoke it with compassion, it felt like she was prodding him after he unearthed the forbidden to help her. “That has nothing to do with this.”
“It has everything to do with this. You're convincing me I should follow the Phaedra's orders because you learned this is an empire where a father hands his son over to be tortured.”
Zayne blinked. That wasn't what he said, at all.
Kira only leaned in more. “You're telling me the Phaedra is even crueler than I know, and you don't want to watch another woman die.”
The drugs and the talk of the forbidden wore down his self-control so his anger broke through his mask.
“I'm telling you that you don't have the power to help anyone, and if you try, you're only going to make it worse.
I left half my squad dead in Bluehaven to play this asinine game with you.
Their bodies aren't even home yet, and we're here having a damn tea party. Stop pretending you can fight an entire empire.”
That look in her eyes. Raw pain. Horror. Guilt. It wasn't like Zayne to lose control. What had been in that tea? He breathed out through his nose.
“I didn't know,” she whispered in a broken voice.
Her pity burned like acid.
“Whatever. It's easier for us both if you survive this unscathed,” he said, trying to clean up the mess he made with her.
“I don't want to be another thing you're forbidden to speak of,” Kira said. “I hear what you're saying.” Her arms came around herself, maybe for protection. “I just hear the things you haven't said too.”
Zayne's muscles itched for that run. If he'd worked out in his room rather than wandered out here, none of this would be happening. “I'm responsible for you, Ms. Stiles. That's why I've made the forbidden no longer forbidden to you. Take what I said seriously.”
She didn't speak at first as she looked at him. “I do. I will.”
He carried his mug to the sink and rinsed it, but it wasn't enough space from her.
Then, because apparently Kira refused to leave anything alone, she spoke in the softest, sweetest voice. “You don't look well.”
How many times did he need to threaten her for her to fear him? It took only four days for her to recognize them as empty.
“What did Dr. Cooper do to you?” Kira asked again.
“I already told you.”
“That was never my question. I meant tonight.”
“Nothing.” He whirled around too quickly for how dizzy he was. “I'm taking medication to help me through my recent loss.”
The suspicion filled her eyes. “What kind of medicine?”
“Stay out of my business.” It stoked his anger just talking about it. “I'm fine.”
Kira didn't look convinced. “The reprogramming never stops, does it?”
Damn, was she bright. It was more dangerous than he'd anticipated to bring her here. She saw through people.
He snarled and stalked to his room.