26 #2
“Poor thing. She’s probably never seen a dead body before. We’ll get you home, Lady Vinyet. Don’t worry.”
It wasn’t fair.
Marisol pressed her forehead against Rodrigo’s and screamed.
She didn’t remember getting home. She saw Rodrigo’s slack face and lightless eyes every time she blinked, and the blood that had hardened into rust-brown patches on her dress was all that she could smell.
She wanted nothing more than to go to bed and sleep through the next few years.
Unfortunately, there was a figure sitting on the front steps of Wildridge Hall.
Bas Arroyo looked up as she exited the carriage, his hands dangling between his long legs. He stared at her for a moment. “Who hurt you?”
“I’m fine,” Marisol said dully. “I thought you went home with Teo.”
“I was worried.” He stood. “Is that your blood?”
“Some of it.”
“Leya—”
The name made her flinch. Tears gathered in her eyes. “A boy I knew from Kindred, he joined the Criterion. He tried to rob me tonight, and they—he—”
Warmth surrounded her. It took her a moment to realize that Bas had pulled her into his arms, let alone that she had started crying again.
On any other night, she would have been humiliated, knowing that he had seen her like this yet again despite all her efforts to hide, but now she curled into his body and let him be strong when she felt so weak.
She cried for Rodrigo and the life he would never get to live.
She cried for their bond and her inability to save it.
She cried for the sacrifices she always had to make, the losses that were dealt to her when she least expected them.
Through it all, Bas held her tightly, his cheek pressed against the top of her head and his hand tracing a soothing path up and down her back.
Flakes of blood were peeling off her dress and onto his jerkin, but he didn’t seem to care.
Her throat was hoarse and her eyes were burning by the time she managed to pull away. She couldn’t meet his gaze, so she stared at the bougainvillea that crept around the pillar to her left. Suddenly, she was even more tired than she’d been before.
“I know you don’t trust me. And I’m not saying I deserve it,” Bas murmured. “But I do care about you, Leya. I would be there for you, if you’d let me.”
Marisol didn’t even have the energy to scoff. “You’re such a liar.”
“The things I haven’t told you… they aren’t my secrets to tell.
” He reached out slowly, telegraphing his actions and giving her plenty of time to stop him.
When she stood unmoving, his hand found her cheek.
“I may have lied about where I came from, or about what I was planning, but I never lied to you about who I was. Or how I felt about you.”
Marisol didn’t lean into his touch, but the gentleness of it was a warm balm to her cold body. It was a jarring contrast to her horrific night, this kindness. Her eyes fluttered closed.
“Why did you run away when you saw Teo and me?” she asked.
Bas’s thumb traced the line of her cheek. “I was upset.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
Marisol opened her eyes, met the intensity of his gaze. “You don’t?”
Rodrigo’s death had left her frozen, but she was slowly thawing beneath Bas’s burning focus. He drew back, sliding his hands into his pockets instead, but she could still feel him everywhere.
“I’m going to tell you a story.” Bas said it like a warning, but it sounded more like a plea.
A request for her to listen. “Once upon a time, there was a boy who traded one horror for another. To save himself or to save his country—to this day, he can’t be sure.
The boy ran as far and as fast as he could go, until he reached a new land and met another boy running in the opposite direction.
Even though one boy had everything and the other had nothing, they became best friends.
Because they both dreamed of all the ways the world could be better.
Because they were both willing to work for a future that had once seemed out of reach. ”
Marisol searched his face. “Were they in love? The boys?”
“Of course,” Bas said, as though it was obvious. “Love can take many forms. The boys watched theirs grow and change over several years, but it was always there.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because he’s all I have.” His voice was a whisper that she could only hear thanks to his proximity.
“Through my own actions, through my own sins, he became everything to me. I didn’t know who to trust, so I forgot how to trust. I didn’t want to feel, so I forgot how to feel.
There was him, or there was nothing, and I’d had enough of nothing to last a lifetime.
It’s not that way anymore.” Marisol held her breath, unable to look away from his face. “He cares for you.”
The breath rushed out, replaced by a strange disappointment. “I know.”
“I don’t want to stand in the way of his happiness.”
“You won’t.” She settled her gaze on his shoulder instead. “But don’t you deserve to be happy, too?”
“Do I?” Bas asked. “Even after everything?”
Marisol reached for the hate that had sustained her and driven her here, and she found nothing but embers where there had once been a wildfire. Rodrigo’s death had smothered all other feeling. All she could see now was loss.
She spoke before her mind could catch up with her words. “After everything, we both deserve to be happy. Whatever that happiness looks like.”
She didn’t know how long they stood there, staring at each other, but it felt as if she were reading a beloved childhood story as an adult and finding new meaning in all her favorite lines.
She saw his pain and his guilt. She saw his protectiveness and his strength. She saw his passion and intuition.
For tonight, not even his bloody hands were enough to distract her from his gentle heart.
“I should get back,” Bas whispered. “Good night, Leya.”
Marisol offered him a faint smile. “Good night.”