I’d only gone about halfway up when I heard the sounds of something getting thoroughly whacked. Devon was up there, just like I’d thought he would be.
I climbed all the way to the top and swung myself from the drainpipe onto the roof. Devon stood in the middle of the scaffolding, beating the heavy bag. Déjà vu. He pointedly ignored me, continuing to wale away on the bag. Please. As if that would make me go away.
This time, I didn’t wait for him to ask me to sit. I headed over to the far side of the roof, plopped down in one of the lawn chairs, and snagged an apple juice from the drink cooler. I cracked the bottle open and started sipping the juice while I propped my legs up on the iron railing that ringed the roof.
Then I waited.
It took him ten more minutes of intense, relentless pounding, but Devon finally worked off enough of his anger, guilt, and grief to leave the heavy bag behind. He slouched down in the chair next to me and grabbed a bottle of water.
We sat there for several minutes, with only his harsh, raspy breaths breaking the silence.
“I’m sorry about your dad,” I finally said. “I know what it’s like to lose someone you love.”
Devon nodded, accepting my sympathy, but if anything, his face was even sadder than before. He gestured at the heavy bag, which was still swinging from his blows.
“My dad built all of this,” he said. “The scaffolding. The lights. He hung up the bags, the hammock, everything. He loved to box, and this was his own private hideout from everyone else in the Family, even my mom. I spent hours up here as a kid, watching him work on the bags and listening to him talk about how to throw the perfect punch.”
“Is that why you hardly ever carry a sword?”
Devon nodded, a brief smile flickering on his face. “My dad liked solving certain problems with his fists. I guess I do, too. Sometimes, it just feels good to punch something, you know?”
“Yeah.”
He blew out a tense breath. “If it was just my dad who was gone, that would be one thing. But it’s not.”
“What do you mean?”
He pressed the water bottle to his forehead, as if the condensation on the plastic would cool his own turbulent thoughts.
“I mean it’s everyone in the Family. My mom, Felix, Angelo, Grant, Reginald, the guards, the pixies. Everyone around me whenever I go down to the Midway or anywhere else outside the mansion. It’s everyone I’m close to. Everyone I . . . care about.”
He didn’t look at me as he said the last few words, but my heart fluttered all the same.
“They’re all at risk because of me,” he continued. “Because I have this compulsion Talent, and some people out there would kill whoever got in their way just so they could take my magic for themselves.”
“Is that what happened with your dad?”
He nodded and started picking at the label on the bottle. “It was just like the attacks at the pawnshop and the library. The two of us had gone to a party that the Itos were throwing for the other Families. When it was over, we decided to walk through the Midway. But once we got to the car in the Family parking lot, these guys surrounded us.”
“Was it the mystery man? Did you see him?”
Devon shook his head. “Nah. It happened so fast, and it was too dark for me to see anyone’s face. My dad and I fought them off the best we could, but my dad stepped up, protecting me.” He paused. “A guy ran him through with a sword right in front of me.”
I hesitated, then reached over and squeezed his hand. His fingers felt warm, swollen, bruised, and sweaty from where he’d been pounding on the bag, but Devon squeezed back, gently curling his fingers around mine, almost as if they were something precious that he was handling with great care. His thumb idly stroked over my skin, as soft as a raindrop sliding across it over and over again. My stomach clenched, and heat surged through my body.
“Sometimes, I wish I could get rid of my stupid magic,” Devon muttered. “I don’t want it. I never wanted it.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” I drawled, trying to focus on his words instead of the feel of his skin against mine. “I think it would be a pretty cool Talent to have. Getting folks to do anything you want with just a few words. I’d love to be able to use it on Oscar, if only to get him to like me, just a little.”
“You’d think so, until you realize that it’s not real,” he said. “What I can make people do . . . it’s not what they want to do. It may sound corny, but I want people to like me for me, not because I can force them to or because of who my mom is or who I am in the Family. You know?”
He raised his green gaze to my blue one. “That’s one of the things I like about you, Lila. You don’t care about any of that.”
“Just one of the things?” I teased, trying to make him laugh a little, just so he’d forget his guilt and grief, if only for a few moments.
“Just one.” His voice took on a low, husky note. “I could list all the others, if you want.”
My gaze locked with his and my soulsight kicked in, showing me all of his emotions. And I felt them, too—more intensely than I ever had before. His heart still ached with that soul-crushing guilt, and it always would. But that hot spark I’d seen inside him that first day at the Razzle Dazzle had finally ignited into a roaring fire, burning as hot and bright as my own emotions were right now.
Devon hesitated, then leaned in, just a little. My breath caught in my throat.
He inched forward a little more. I wet my lips.
He came even closer, so close that his warm breath brushed my cheek and his scent flooded my nose, that sharp, fresh tang of pine. Clean and crisp, just like he was, inside and out. I sighed. Suddenly, my hands itched to touch him, to trace my fingers over the sharp planes of his face, and then slide them lower, over all of his warm, delicious muscles . . .
“Lila,” he whispered.
I shivered, loving the sound of my name on his lips—lips that were heartbreakingly close to mine—