Page 69 of These Godly Lies
Her hand falls from his shoulder, but she lets it hover between them—palm up—in offering. “You can come with me, if you’d like.”
He stares at her hand, one moment, two, before his amber eyes return to her hazel ones. “I’m not supposed to leave. I’m supposed to make sure it keeps burning.”
He sounds as young as he looks. Anna swallows, lets her hand fall. A quick glance proves the fire is getting closer. The heat of it makes her skin damp, sweat rolling down her collar and between her shoulder blades.
“You should run,” he says, but the warning falls flat. As if he doesn’t believe it will really make a difference if she heeds it or not. “They’re going to come for you, too.”
Anna’s heart stutters.
They.
Her knees tremble as she straightens, retreating a step. There are shards of bitter truths in her throat, cutting like glass when she swallows. When she speaks, the words are shredded and metallic on her tongue. “Where’s Khiran?”
The boy—Malik—doesn’t answer, not in words, but Anna can see it reflected in his eyes. It’s just as destructive as the fire surrounding them—just as deafening. Anna’s chest rises and falls, gasping, but she can’t find her breath.
The key was in the ignition.
The key was in the ignition and their bag—their bag was on the seat.
She sways, stumbles. Malik watches her with detached curiosity as she sinks to the ground, but she doesn’t care. She is unraveling, fragile satin threads of control slipping between her fingers and curling in the heat. Ready to blacken. Ready to burn.
A thought echoes like a nightmare in her mind, over and over, until Anna can feel the cruel cut of the truth.
Khiran would die before he left her.
Together. They promised each other that they would face whatever cametogether.
“Aren’t you going to run?” Malik asks.
Anna’s fingers curl against the ground, ash and earth burying beneath her nails. She stares at the furrowed grooves her hands leave behind. Run? Where would she run to? Khiran is gone. “No.” She lifts her head. Meets Malik’s concentrated stare.
He’s waiting, she realizes. They’ll come for him, pluck him from the chaos he’s created, and take him home.
Home.
They would take Khiran home, too. Home to The First.
If she waits here, they’ll take her, too.
Malik only watches as she folds in on herself, drawing her trembling arms around her chest. “You’ll burn,” he murmurs. Anna could almost believe it to be a warning if not for the confused inflection marking it as a question.
A laugh, bitter and pained, claws up from her throat until it twists into a sob. If there are tears streaking her cheeks, she can’t feel it. The heat of the fire makes her skin prickle and her eyes sting. It won’t be the first time she’s burned.
Maybe it will be her last.
In another life, Khiran had spun her stories of this boy while her hands tended to her garden. The Calamity. The boy with a short fuse and scorching power.None of us are immune to his flames, Khiran had said. Anna doesn’t know if that’s true for her or not. She only knows the risk of burning is worth the chance of being brought back to him.
Anna breathes deep, the air laced with soot and heat, as she lifts her head. Studies the boy described as a bomb. Marcia had enjoyed their fear—had drank from it as if it were the sweetest of wines. Anna sees none of that cruelty in him. There is no wicked, cutting smile. No sadistic pleasure in his dark gaze, only apathy.
A voice—her name—so soft she barely catches it. It slips through the static humming in her ears, the roaring rush of flames. She stands, soot darkening the front of her dress, and strains her ears. She’s scared it’s not real. Scared her heart is meddling with her mind,but she hears it again and the relief is so great she almost collapses with it.
Khiran.
She runs. Towards the sound of his voice. Towardshim.
It’s impossible, but she swears the trees sway away from her. Their flaming branches parting to make a path she can travel without fear of being tangled in them. She follows it, even when the splitting of limbs and the screaming whistle of steam becomes so loud she loses the sound of his voice. There is something else there now. An urgent buzzing under her skin telling her to listen. To trust.
She doesn’t know what she’s hearing, what she’s feeling, but she’s too desperate to question it. Her pulse drums in her ears, blood rushing beneath her skin. There’s a wall of fire in front of her, but she turns sharply, following the instinctual pull of her heart. A clearing, not yet touched by the destruction, opens up ahead.
