Chapter Twenty-One
Yun
I hadn’t even realized I’d fallen asleep before I saw Corsa standing there, before me. One minute I was in the shower, the next, there he was.
I shook my head, wondering how unlucky a person could be. This didn’t feel like good sleep, like the kind that would let me wake up well-rested. Instead, it seemed as though when someone finally woke me, I’d wonder what century it was.
“This is bullshit,” I muttered. At least we weren’t in The Pitt, at least not like before. Instead, I was still in the shower, which had me turning my back on him and pretending he wasn’t there.
He’d already ruined so many things, did he really have to ruin my shower, too?
In fact, that made me wonder if I might be sleeping under the water right now. Maybe I was drowning?
That seemed like a pretty foolish way to go. Could Kenyon solve drowning? At least a petty part of me thought Mr. Yorn would have an aneurysm that his little pet escaped him in such a mundane way.
“You didn’t speak like that before.”
“I was a kid before. I’m an adult now.”
“So it seems.” Something in his tone triggered a warning in my head, made me twist and really think.
I hadn’t fallen asleep, had I? I remembered getting into the shower, lathering up my hair, all of it. I didn’t have any gaps, which meant…
I grabbed a towel that hung over the top bar of the shower’s glass door, then held it in front of me. It didn’t wrap fully around me because that would require far more coordination than I thought myself capable of at the moment.
“You’re here.” I hated the fear in my voice, the way it shook.
“Not yet, no.”
“But I’m not asleep.”
“I could only contact you when you were asleep before because you were outside of the portal. Now you’re here, home, so I can reach you when you’re awake.
” His gaze moved over me, but I didn’t feel anything sexual in it.
Still, it made me want to cower away. “You’re finally coming in the right direction. ”
“I’m going for the heart, not for you.”
“Lucky for you, just as you’re connected to the heart, so am I.
I never much believed in fate before, but I understand now that some things are meant to be, that they are inevitable.
I was always meant to be here, and you were always meant to come back to me.
” He shrugged, as though it were a forgone conclusion.
I shook my head, refusing to accept that. “I know what happened in The Pitt before, I know how you ended up trapped here.”
“Yes, I made a choice to follow orders.”
“You made a choice to follow your own interest. You were more than willing to let kids die just to get a shot at glory, at a title from people in power.”
Anger flashed in his purple eyes, but he didn’t rise to my jab. “Do you know why you’ve been running for ten years and I haven’t?”
“Because you’re trapped in here and I wasn’t.” I winced at my own words, wondering who I’d gotten that snark from. I’d guess Carter, since if it were Ingram, there would have been more cursing.
He smiled as though mildly amused. “Because I have power and you don’t.
It’s why you were shuffled from squad to squad, why that fool from Obsidian thought he could use you, why you constantly need a squad to save you.
You look down on me for my choice, but the reality is that I did what was needed to gain power, which is all that really matters in our world. ”
My fingers ached as I gripped the towel, the water still falling down and soaking me. I didn’t tear my eyes away from him, even though I knew he wasn’t exactly there. He was in my mind, portraying this to me, perceiving me through reflections, but he wasn’t here.
“You’ve made it ten years without me. Why can’t you just leave me alone?”
“Because I think I would have lost my mind if not for you. Corrupted do that, they lose themselves, their minds fractured by the pressure of that corruption inside of them. It takes over until nothing of who they were remains. That would have happened to me as well, but I stumbled upon you. You pulled me back from that edge.”
“No, I didn’t, given you’re still corrupted.”
“The cracks formed, but you created a band around my mind, holding it together, letting it fuse into something else. Not the same person I was, but not a corrupted either. Instead, something at the center of those two.”
“Even if I did do that, you clearly don’t need me now.”
“I do. I feel that band weakening. Just like guiding is never a one-time job, neither is you saving me. I’ll need you to guide me again, to keep doing it until we both die.”
“Both?”
He smiled, the expression almost romantic.
It was as though he saw us as a couple, like two souls meant to be.
“Of course. I won’t live long after you go anyway, so I suspect I will follow you over that threshold as well.
As I said, we were meant to be right from the start.
There is no stopping that, no changing it.
” He paused, then let out a chuckle that held no sanity within it.
“I might even be looking forward to it. It isn’t that I want to die, but I wonder if death with someone else might not be a peaceful endeavor. ”
I thought back to the time so many years ago, to the memories I had tried to bury or erase.
Had Corsa been so crazed back then? Was he being honest—had I somehow held together his fractured mind?
That the years without me had pushed him along this path until he struggled to hold onto any semblance of control?
I swallowed hard, wanting nothing more than to yell for Shear, for Carter, for anyone.
“You can call for them if you want,” Corsa said.
“They won’t be able to do anything to change this.
They can’t stop the inevitable. Besides, haven’t they proven what they really are?
Cowards who can’t make the hard decisions.
They say they chose the children because it was a moral choice, but have you never considered that their choice had them safe?
That they got out because of it? If they had done as ordered, would they have made it out?
Or ended up like me? I would suggest you don’t put them on too high a pedestal, because they certainly don’t deserve to remain on it. ”
“I don’t want you,” I said, an almost desperate attempt to get him to understand that. I’d fallen for others, had a life. If he gave a damn about me like he claimed, he’d understand that, right?
He smiled, and for a moment, I thought I’d gotten through to him.
I thought maybe he’d realized what I’d meant.
“I don’t care what you want.” So much for that…
“This isn’t about what either of us want.
I don’t want you either, at least not in the way you mean, in the way you and they are together.
That is cheap and pointless. What you and I have is so much deeper, so much more real.
We don’t have to like each other, we don’t have to love each other, because we are bound tighter, in a way that matters more. ”
I shook my head, refusing to believe him, chalking that up to madness, to his obsession, to the corruption that had damaged his mind.
I crouched, the towel soaked from the water, and slipped my fingers into the damp strands of my hair.
It wasn’t just the fear of him that got to me, it was the unknown.
It was having no idea if what he said was true.
Maybe we were bound together in some twisted way, maybe that was why I’d been able to guide him when that hadn’t been thought possible before, maybe the ability I’d gained afterward to hurt espers was proof of how broken I’d been from the start.
“In the end, all of this fighting has been for what? You’ve ended up back here with me, right where you started, right where you belong.
You’ve hurt others along the way, dragged them into your mess, and for what?
It hasn’t changed a thing. If you take one lesson from this, let it be that the more you struggle against the current, the more water you breathe in.
If you keep pushing it, the ones who pay the ultimate price won’t be you.
” He disappeared, shimmering out of existence before my eyes.
It made me feel lighter, as though the weight he’d placed on my mind went away.
Even if he left, though, the words didn’t. They circled in my head, and before I knew it, the water had gone cold.
“Your fingers are turning into prunes.” Carter’s voice had me lifting my head, realizing that I hadn’t even noticed he’d come in. “The water’s cold, too.” He reached past me to twist the handle, the freezing spray turning off, then wrapped a fresh towel around me. “What’s wrong? What happened?”
I recalled Corsa’s warning—and the wound that Kenyon had no doubt healed on Carter, the injuries they’d all gotten—and forced myself to hide it all. “Nothing. I guess I was just thinking.”
Too bad I couldn’t seem to come to any conclusion.