Chapter 15 #3
He didn’t look away from the sea, but Reiven pulled the cigarette out of his mouth and spoke first, blowing a cloud of smoke away from us. “I wasn’t trying to make you cry.”
“I know. I understand what you were doing—”
“No. I should have minded my own business. I’m the last person who should try to tell you how to handle a man who’s so similar to me.” The self-loathing, the bitterness that coated his tone…Maybe I had underestimated how much that one brief comment, that he was like Vaetrik, affected him.
I gently touched his shoulder. “Rei…Look at me.”
He hesitated for a moment, then did as I asked. The exhaustion I saw there in the void of his eyes made my heart crack inside my chest.
“You are nothing like Vaetrik.”
Reiven exhaled, long and slow. Any other time, I would have expected him to retort something snarky, but he stayed silent.
“I mean that, alright? Vaetrik needs to be cruel to feel in control, but you’re just a petty asshole.
Unfortunately, that’s part of your personality.
” That earned a chuckle from him, thank the Spirits.
“You were trying to help me. I’m not afraid of you, not at all, so yelling at you was surprisingly comforting.
Pretending that you were the person who really hurt me, who made me believe I couldn’t trust anyone...
” I studied the way his tired, slight smile fell away.
“But you couldn’t be more different from him. ”
Vaetrik had confessed to me that if he didn’t do something drastic, he’d never make anything of himself.
He had been a simple fisherman living on a tiny island.
Adrift in a sea of mediocrity. Kidnapping me and buying his way into the Eventide Brigade allowed him to indulge in the cruelty that simmered beneath the surface of the kindness he had shown me when we first met.
“He hardly had power over his own life before we met,” I said.
Vaetrik had laughed off the bruises I asked him about, but I saw the fear dimming his eyes when he glanced at the island where he lived.
The same fear that tightened my throat when I looked at him now.
“Selling me gave him control. Keeping me afraid and subservient to him became his greatest obsession.”
Reiven clenched his hands into fists, then retrieved the knife I had acquired from Gatelo from his belt.
He awkwardly held the handle towards me, and I took it without a word.
Why would he let me have a weapon? He shifted closer to me until our arms were hardly an inch apart.
“So…what you’re saying is…that he’s nothing without you. ”
My breath caught.
“You’ll have both Ash and I by your side the next time we run into him,” Rei said. “I’ll hold his arms, and you stab. I owe him for two out of three gunshots, anyway.”
“As if I’d ever let you partake in my revenge. You, the second-highest person on my shit list.”
Luckily, he recognized the joke in my voice, and we shared another chuckle. “I wouldn’t expect to be on any other list, Zephra.”
It felt strange, hearing him say my name so naturally. It was almost too intimate. “Look, I really don’t mind when you call me Blue. A-actually, I think I prefer it.”
“But you said—”
“What I said had nothing to do with you, Rei. Besides, blue is my favorite color.” I took a piece of my hair and twirled it around my finger. Standing so close to him was making me flushed and jittery, but I didn’t even mind.
I closed the last bit of distance between us, letting the comforting warmth of his arm seep into my skin. Another cool ocean breeze flowed past us, carrying away the scent of peppery smoke. I reveled in how different the heat of his body felt from the nighttime air.
Reiven chuckled softly. “Blue is my favorite color, too.”
Not black?
I would have called him out for lying if it wasn’t for the serious look in his eye, and the sensation of his bare knuckles brushing against the back of my hand. Warm and reassuring, just like his arm.
I leaned into him. “Call me Blue. I like it.”
“Fine, if you’re going to be so pushy about it…Blue.”
“Much better. Now, what are you doing out here? It’s late.”
“Couldn’t sleep. I must be too used to your serenading, because without your damn song, it’s impossible for me to get any shuteye.”
I almost wanted to laugh. He had been so aggravated when I sang before, so imagining him tossing and turning because I didn’t sing for him simply delighted me.
Although, I had a feeling that wasn’t the only reason he couldn’t sleep.
He used to get up and leave every night before he got injured, and now I wondered if, when he did, it was to come up here to smoke and stare at the water, like tonight.
“You’re hurting, aren’t you? Not your gunshot wounds. Something else.” Rei stiffened when I rested my hand on his arm. “What is it?”
“I…” Reiven clamped his mouth shut and stared down at the black water slapping against the hull. The longer he stayed silent, the more worried I became. Even in the darkness, I saw the battle taking place within his starlit eyes.
After what felt like forever, he finally turned to face me with an odd, melancholy smile. “I’m cursed.”