Reckless, p.2
Reckless, page 2
“Tell me, darling, do you think of me often?” His voice is a murmur, as if his lips were pressed against my ear. I shiver, knowing exactly what that feels like.
If he knows I’m here then why hasn’t he—
“Do I haunt your dreams, plague your thoughts, like you do mine?”
My breath hitches.
So he doesn’t know I’m here, not for certain.
His admission told me as much.
As an Ordinary who was trained and tailored into a Psychic, I was taught by my father to read people, to gather information and observations in a matter of seconds.
And I’ve had far more than a matter of seconds to read Kai Azer.
I’ve seen through his many masks and facades, glimpsing the boy beneath and growing to know him, care for him. And with all the betrayal now between us, I know he wouldn’t declare dreaming of me if he knew I was drinking in every word.
I hear the humor in his voice as he sighs. “Where are you, Little Psychic?”
His nickname is laughable, seeing that he and the rest of the kingdom now know I’m anything but. Anything but Elite.
Nothing but Ordinary.
Soot stings my nose and I have to clamp my hand over it to hold in a sneeze, reminding me of my many nights thieving from the stores lining Loot before escaping through cramped chimneys.
Cramped. Trapped. Suffocating.
My eyes dart across the bricks surrounding me in the darkness. The space is so small, so stuffy, so very easily making me panic.
Calm down.
Claustrophobia chooses the worst times to claw to the surface and remind me of my helplessness.
Breathe.
I do. Deeply. The hand still clamped over my nose smells faintly of metal—sharp and strong and stinging my nose.
Blood.
I pull the shaky hand away from my face, and though I can’t see the crimson staining my fingers, I can practically feel it clinging to me. There’s still blood crusted under my cracked nails, and I don’t know whether it’s mine, the king’s, or—
I suck in a breath, trying to pull myself together. The Enforcer looms far too close to me, pacing the floor, wood groaning beneath him with each step.
Getting caught because I started sobbing would be equally as embarrassing as getting caught for sneezing.
And I refuse to do either.
At some point, the Imperials stomp back into the room beneath me. “No sign of her, Your Highness.”
There’s a long pause before his highness sighs. “Just as I thought. You’re all useless.” His next words are sharper than the blade he flips casually in his hand. “Get out.”
The Imperials don’t waste a single second before scrambling toward the door and away from him. I don’t blame them.
But he’s still here, leaving nothing but silence to stretch between us. I have a hand clamped over my nose again, and the smell of blood combined with the cramped chimney has my head spinning.
Memories flood my mind—my body caked in blood, my screams as I tried to scrub it away, only managing to stain my skin a sickening red. The sight and smell of so much blood made me sick, made me think of my father bleeding out in my arms, of Adena doing the same.
Adena.
Tears prick my eyes, forcing me to blink away the image of her lifeless body in the sandy Pit. The metallic stench of blood fills my nose again, and I can’t stand to smell it, to look at it, to feel it—
Breathe.
A heavy sigh cuts through my thoughts. He sounds as tired as I feel. “It’s a good thing you’re not here,” he says softly, a tone I never thought I’d hear from him again. “Because I still haven’t found my courage.”
And then my home bursts into flames.
CHAPTER 2 Kai
Flames lick at my heels as I leisurely make my way to the door.
Waves of heat crash into my back; wisps of smoke cling to my clothing. I step outside into the cloudy afternoon, now further polluted by the billowing clouds of smoke wafting into the sky.
My lips twitch at the look of shock on my Imperials’ faces, accompanied by the unhinged jaws they fight to clamp shut as flames consume the house behind me. Their gazes slowly flick to me, managing to reach as high as my collar before they’re shifting uncomfortably on their feet.
They still when I stride toward them with ease.
They think I’ve gone mad.
Glass shatters when a window bursts behind me, sending shards of sharp edges scattering onto the street. The Imperials flinch, covering their faces. The sight makes me smile.
Maybe they’re right. Maybe I have gone mad.
Mad with worry, with rage, with betrayal.
The tension continuously coiling through my body seems to be the only constant in my life, resulting in stiffened shoulders and a clamped jaw. My fingers drum against the dagger at my side, tempting me to take out my frustration on one of the many useless Imperials.
I trace the swirling steel on the hilt, the pattern familiar beneath my fingertips. How could I forget the dagger that’s been held against my throat so many times?
How could I forget the dagger that I pulled from my father’s severed neck?
It’s been three days since I saw the hilt of this very weapon protruding from the king’s throat. Three days to grieve, and yet, I haven’t shed a single tear. Three days to prepare, and yet, no plan will truly free me from her. Three days to simply be Kitt and Kai—brothers—before we became king and Enforcer.
And now her head start is up.
Though it seems that she used it wisely—took advantage of my weakness, my cowardice, my feelings for her—and ran. I spin to face the flames, watching the colorful chaos as fire consumes her home in red, orange, thick black smoke, and—
Silver.
I blink, squinting through suffocating smoke at the collapsing roof. But there’s nothing there, no hint of the shimmer I saw a moment ago. I run a hand through my hair before pressing the heels of my palms against tired eyes.
Yes, I’ve truly gone mad.
“Sir!”
I drop my hands, slowly fixing my gaze on the Imperial brave enough to shout at me. He clears his throat, likely regretting that decision. “I, uh, I think I saw something, Your Highness.”
He points to the flaming roof, smoke shifting as a figure stumbles through the flames. A figure with silver hair.
So she is here.
I can’t seem to decide whether I’m relieved or not.
“Bring her to me.”
My command rings out, and the Imperials don’t miss a beat. And, apparently, neither does she. I barely catch a glimpse of her before she jumps off the edge of the crumbling roof and onto the neighboring one, legs bounding as soon as she finds her footing.
Imperials run down the street below, Brawnies and Shields rendered utterly useless as she jumps from roof to roof. I comb a hand through my hair again before dragging it down my face, unsurprised by their incompetence.
I flip the knife I’d yanked from the wall in my hand before taking off down the street, quickly catching up with my Imperials. I feel each of their powers buzzing under my skin, begging to be released. But their abilities are useless to me unless I can get her on the ground, making me regret not bringing a Tele who could set her on the street before me with nothing but a thought.
She can only stay on the rooftops if she’s able to jump between them. And that’s why, with the flick of my wrist, I send the knife flying toward her.
I watch as it meets its mark, slicing through her thigh as she leaps. Her cry of pain makes me flinch, an action that is as frustrating as it is foreign to me.
She hits the flat roof hard, rolling in a feeble attempt to lessen the fall. I watch as she staggers to her feet, blood streaming down her leg. Her features are fuzzy from this distance, and I can almost pretend that she is simply a forgetful figure limping to the edge of a roof.
She’s no fool. She knows she can’t make the jump.
My gaze snaps to the Imperials gawking up at her. “Must I do everything for you?” My voice is cold. “Go get her.”
But then my eyes wander back up to the roof. Empty.
Foolish of me to think she’d make this easy.
“Find her,” I bark, gritting my teeth against a slew of curses. The Imperials split up, sprinting in opposite directions down the streets I ensured would be practically empty for this exact reason. A thief’s ability to blend in is alarming, allowing them to get swallowed in chaos, lost in a crowd. And she would do just that if I hadn’t cleared Loot for the day.
I stride down the street, glancing into the adjacent alleys jutting off it. Muffled shouts ring out, echoing off the run-down homes and shops. I silently continue my search, feet faltering when I spot a figure slumped at the end of a shadowed alley.
I crouch beside the Imperial, eyes wandering over his once-white uniform, now soaked with blood. Scarlet seeps from a throwing knife buried deep in his chest, oozing over the crisp folds of his uniform.
She is a vicious little thing.
My fingers are at his throat, checking for a pulse despite knowing I won’t feel its familiar beat. I sigh, dropping my head into my hands. My whole body feels heavy with exhaustion, weighed down by my worries.
I buried someone who tried to kill her once.
Simply because I knew it was something she would have wanted. I carried Sadie’s dead body through the dark Whispers Forest during that first Trial because I knew Paedyn was falling apart when I left her to spin that ring on her thumb. If it were up to me, I would have never buried the body of someone who tried to kill her. But I wasn’t thinking of myself when I’d done it.
Death is familiar to me, both friend and foe, and far too frequent in my life. But for her, Death is devastation, no matter its victim.
I imagine she’s spinning that ring on her thumb at this very moment, biting the inside of her cheek as she forces herself to run from the man she just killed rather than dig him a grave like I know she desperately wishes to.
“She would have buried you if she weren’t so busy running from me, you know,” I murmur to the body beside me, confirming that I have, in fact, gone mad. I lift the Imperial’s white mask from his face, giving me a better view of his glassy brown eyes before I brush his lids closed. “So the least I can do is bury you for her.”
I’d never given a second thought to what became of my soldiers’ bodies. And yet, here I am, hauling a man over my shoulder because of a girl who despises doling out death. I grunt under the Imperial’s weight, wondering why the hell I’m even bothering with this.
What has she done to me?
His limp body swings over my shoulder with every step I take.
Will her grave be the next I dig?
CHAPTER 3 Paedyn
I’m shocked he can’t hear my pounding heart, feel my burning gaze as it trails over him.
I shift, my stomach sliding across the rough roof as I peek over the edge. Pain sears down my leg, drawing my attention to the crudely bandaged slice on my thigh. I bite my tongue, holding in a cry along with a string of colorful curse words. The hastily torn hem of my spare shirt is already a revolting shade of crimson atop the wound, forcing me to turn my attention on the figure below, unable to stand the sight of it.
But I can’t stand the sight of him, either.
I already know what his remark would be if I’d told him that to his smirking face—You’re a terrible liar, Gray.
My eyes roll at the thought before they travel over him, taking in his messy black waves falling wherever they please across his brow. He’s crouching beside the Imperial I’d gifted with a knife to the chest, his profile grim, gray eyes skimming over the man’s face. Then he drops his head into his hands, looking equally frustrated and fatigued.
The sight the Enforcer fills me with rage, but I force myself to focus on him rather than the blood blooming across the Imperial’s white uniform.
I swallow, suddenly feeling sick at the thought. Tears stung my eyes when I let that knife fly into the man’s chest, blurring my vision as his body crumpled to the ground.
I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.
I don’t know if he heard my pleading apology, don’t know if he saw the sorrow in my eyes before I dragged myself onto the roof of a shop when the sound of footsteps echoed off the walls.
I blink away the memory, the tears, and instead choose to focus on the Enforcer mere feet away from me.
I could kill him. Right here, right now.
There’s suddenly another throwing knife clutched between my stained fingers, my trembling hand.
“Promise me you’ll stay alive long enough to stab me in the back?”
His words to me after that first ball echo in my mind.
I could make good on that promise.
With the way he’s positioned, his back is exactly where I would bury this blade. The hilt of the dagger grows sweaty in my palm, but I tighten my grip.
Do it.
There’s suddenly a lump in my throat that I furiously try to swallow. The boy beneath me killed my father, has killed dozens of Ordinaries in the name of the king. And I am his next target.
I hate how I’m hesitating.
Do. It.
I raise my arm, fingers trembling around the knife. The movement makes my brand burn, stretching the skin and the reminder engraved there.
O for Ordinary.
He suddenly shifts, lifting the Imperial’s mask and closing his unseeing eyes with a gentleness that doesn’t belong to the Enforcer—a gentleness I wish I hadn’t witnessed.
“She would have buried you if she weren’t so busy running from me, you know.”
My breath hitches; my heart hammers.
He’s right. I would have dragged this man to the nearest patch of dirt and dug him into the ground if I could have. As if that would right the wrong I’d done. As if that would make up for the fact that I never buried my best friend or father.
The symmetry in their deaths was sickening—both of them bleeding out in my arms before I ran.
“So the least I can do is bury you for her.”
That one soft sentence cuts through me like a knife, making me nearly drop the one clutched in my hand. I stare, stunned, as he heaves the man over his shoulder and staggers to his feet.
Kai.
That is who I see before me. Not the Enforcer. Not one of the many masks he slips on. Just him.
I hate it.
I hate that I got to see a glimpse of that boy again. Because it is so much easier to hate him when it’s not him I’m hating at all, but the Enforcer he was molded into.
I watch as he makes his way out of the alley with the man I killed slung over his shoulder. Kai does nothing without reason, leaving me to baffle over his kindness.
And when he disappears around the corner, I’m suddenly wondering why I showed him kindness.
* * *
The stars are flirtatious things, always winking down in the darkness.
But they make for good company, surrounding me with their countless constellations. I’ve been lying on the roof of this run-down shop for hours, watching day melt into dusk and dusk fade into darkness.
The sun had sunk deep into the horizon before the Imperials’ echoing shouts slowly sputtered out. Eventually, the sounds of their shuffling boots on uneven cobblestone died as I stared at the sky, willing it to darken.
When the last streaks of purple bleed from the canopy of clouds, leaving a black blanket smothering all of Ilya, I finally stand to my feet and stretch. My body aches—a feeling I’ve grown familiar with—but the fresh wound I earned today is especially painful. At the sudden movement, blood begins to trickle down my thigh, carving a crimson path down my leg. I can’t stand the sticky feel of it, reminding me of the blood I will never be able to wash off my hands.
Climbing down from the roof is an embarrassingly slow process, but as soon as my feet hit the street, I’m slipping into the shadows. I limp through quiet alleys, avoiding the homeless who have begun to hunch back into their familiar corners for the evening.
There are Imperials crawling everywhere. They quietly pace down the streets, heads swiveling, eyes searching the darkness for me. That makes things both complicated and completely annoying. I dodge them in the dying light, doing my best not to drip a trail of blood across the cobblestones while weaving through alleys.
I turn down a dark street littered with uneven stones—
A rough hand clamps down around my shoulder, the grip anything but gentle. I duck my head, catching oiled black boots out of the corner of my eye as the scent of starch slams into me. I don’t hesitate before hooking my foot around the man’s ankle and tugging, sending him sprawling to the ground, startled. I’m on him in a matter of seconds, slipping the dagger from my boot and sending the hilt of it down against his temple, silencing his strangled cry of surprise.
The thin Imperial is barely more than a boy, now lying in an unconscious heap on the shadowed cobblestones. My heart beats wildly, forcing me to take a breath before I struggle to drag him farther into the alley, hiding him deeper in the darkness.
Reaching the outskirts of the Scorches Desert is a slow and severely frustrating journey. I never imagined that I would be relieved to see the wide stretch of sand before me, but after hours of slinking in the shadows and narrowly avoiding getting caught, the sight is enough to make me smile despite the pinch of pain it causes.
There are very few Imperials stationed on the border of the Scorches, seeing that the citizens of Dor and Tando know better than to visit Ilya and be mistaken as an Ordinary. Isolation is what Ilya does best, ensuring the Elite society continues to thrive without being tainted by those without abilities.
The thought makes me angry. The truth of it makes me sick.
And with fury fueling each one of my steps, I begin stomping my way through the sand. It shifts under my boots before eventually slipping into them, making this journey impossibly more uncomfortable.
The hours tick by as I trudge forward. I occupy myself by racking my tired brain, trying to recall the maps my father would spread before me as a child. I’m not entirely sure how far the desert spans, which makes me feel entirely foolish for thinking I could survive this with my injuries.
