Page 240 of Because I Killed Him
“If you knew how much I love you, Edmund,” I say, “you’d never ask me that.”
“Loredana.” He tilts my chin up toward him, as if pleading for me to understand. “It’sbecauseI love you that I ask you that.”
The lightness of his touch pulls me closer despite myself, reminding me of what first drew me to him: the knowledge that while one of his hands can be fierce, twisting a saber through an enemy, the other always moves gently, lifting a shield over those he loves.
“Edmund,” I say, “if I told you I want to be with you, despite all the risks, would you still walk away?”
“No.”
The certainty in his tone catches me off guard. “Why? Why would you change your mind?”
“Because twice was enough.”
“Twice?”
He swallows, and his hand slips from my face in a slow, fractured motion. “I thought you were dead from the piranhas. Then again, last night, when the Rangers attacked. I can’t do it anymore. I can’t waste another second feeling like I’m losing you. I’ll go mad.”
The desperation in his expression—flickering like a fire he tries to extinguish, only to flare up elsewhere—makes me wonder if he already has. I lift my hand to brush his cheek, hoping to steady him the way he’s done for me so many times, even when my sadness ran so deep it felt impossible to reach. Edmund leans into my palm with a low breath, his eyes half-closing, as if the noise in his head has finally gone quiet. My fingers move up to his hair, still matted with rubble and blood, and gradually, I feel him begin to ease. I think about what he said, about how he was ready to let me go because of what he couldn’t give me, and I understand now more than ever why Jack and Dickie love him so fiercely; why Irene fell for him while engaged to Charles; why Rosamund clings to him as if they were conjoined.
Because I feel it, too. I feel as if Edmund has made my heart grow flowers, as if it can’t beat unless I’m close enough to hear his. But that’s what makes this moment unbearable. When I ask myself now if there are any barriers between us, for the first time, the answer is yes… and it’s not for a reason I ever expected. I don’t care that he’s a Blue, or that we can never marry and have a family, or even that loving him might mean endless pain in pursuit of a life that, as Mom warned me, can only end in loss. What matters is that Edmund still hasn’t made a choice. He hasn’t taken a side. There’s a wall between us, one that will only rise higher when Dad runs for Governor of the Rainbow District, and my family gets dragged back into the spotlight. I won’t be cowering or hiding like I did this year. I swore I’d change, and I will. I’ll stand up and fight like Dad does. And I can’t pull Edmund into that fight unless he chooses it himself.
“Loredana,” he says quietly.
He meets my gaze with such tenderness thateven my soul seems to respond. I don’t know what I did to deserve it, but I do know this: if Edmund ever used even a fraction of the resolve that he’s looking at me with now to stand against the injustice of his own kind, I’d belong to him forever.
“I’m sorry for lying to you,” he says, “and for hurting you. But if, in spite of it all, you still love me, I’ll say yes.” He takes my face in his hands, and for the first time, it feels like he’s not looking past me at someone he mistook for me but at who I am. “I’ll honor you. I’ll protect you. I’ll be loyal to you. And I’ll love you, if not publicly, then at least openly in front of my family.”
I lean into him, every part of me burning with the desire to ask him to do it. If I loved him even a little less, I would. I’d tell him to cross the line for me, to choose the low-citizen side the way President Reeve did.
But I can’t.
I know that if Edmund stood up against his own kind—his own family—only for my sake, it wouldn’t last. Over time, he’d look back on that decision with resentment, the kind that might destroy his love for me. He has to choose to fight against high-citizen injustice because he believes in it, because he knows it’s right, and because he has the will to bear the cost. I don’t know when, or even if, that will happen. But seeing him hesitate on the Sailing Strip, caught between Greens and Blues as they charged, made one thing painfully clear: until Edmund chooses a side, I can’t choose him.
I understand he needs time. I know it’ll be as difficult as choosing one half of himself over the other. But for as long as it takes, I’m willing to wait.
In the meantime, I need to give him a reason why we can’t be together. A reason he’ll understand.
“Yes, Edmund.” A tremor of emotion runs through me as I press my cheek against his chest. “I still love you. But…” I pause, struggling desperately for the right words. “Do you know what a Section Twenty-Seven is?”
A pause. Then, “Yes. Why?”
“A few days ago, someone tried to kill me by sabotaging my civil credits. I don’t know who it was, but by the time it stopped, I was only three credits away from execution.”
Edmund goes completely still, as if caught between thought and instinct. A darkness settles over him, fear submerged beneath the heavier force of fury, as his hands fall away from my face. It reminds me of the footage from the Tangerine Tree, at the exact moment before he charged, his mind already ten steps ahead of his body, choosing violence with chilling clarity.
When he speaks, his voice is too calm, as if every word is holding back a roar. “Not even most Blues have the power to pull off a Section Twenty-Seven. And they can’t be stopped unless…” His voice trails off, and his eyes drop to my thumb.
I know what he’s searching for.
“Yes. I have an Aegis,” I say. “But it’s hidden.”
He catches my hand with a sudden, precise movement, pulling it closer to inspect my Blood Ring. “You made a deal with a Blue?”
“No. Not exactly. I don’t know which Blue owns it. The price for the Aegis was a job—a government assignment.”
“What job?”
I shake my head, frustrated at how much I have to explain while being able to reveal so little. “I can’t tell you. But I wasn’t blackmailed into it. It’s something I want to do, something good. The problem is that, after summer, when the job starts, I have to stay away from Blues. All of them.”
