“What do you mean?”
“I mean, like—what, he took you out on a date or something? Bought you chocolates and wrote you some really shitty poetry? Warner doesn’t exactly seem like the affectionate type, if you know what I mean.”
“Oh.” I bite the inside of my cheek. “No, it was nothing like that.”
“Then?”
“He just . . . told me.”
Kenji stops walking so abruptly I nearly fall over. “No he didn’t.”
I don’t know how to respond to that.
“He actually said those words? To your face? Like, directly to your face?”
“Yes.”
“So—so—so wait, so he tells you he loves you . . . and you said? What?” Kenji demands, dumbfounded. “‘Thank you’?”
“No.” I stifle a cringe, remembering all too well that I actually shot Warner for it the first time. “I mean I didn’t—I mean—I don’t know, Kenji, it’s all really weird for me right now. I still haven’t found a way to deal with it.” My voice drops to a whisper. “Warner is really . . . intense,” I say, and I’m overcome by a flood of memories, my emotions colliding into one jumble of insanity.
His kisses on my body. My pants on the floor. His desperate confessions unhinging my joints.
I squeeze my eyes shut, feeling too hot, too unsteady, everything all too suddenly.
“That’s definitely one way of putting it,” Kenji mutters, snapping me out of my reverie. I hear him sigh. “So Warner still has no idea that he and Kent are brothers?”
“No,” I say, immediately sobered.
Brothers.
Brothers who hate each other. Brothers who want to kill each other. And I’m caught in the middle. Good God, what has happened to my life.
“And both of these guys can touch you?”
“Yes? But—well, no, not really.” I try to explain. “Adam . . . can’t really touch me. I mean, he can, sort of . . . ?” I trail off. “It’s complicated. He has to actively work and train to counteract my energy with his own. But with Warner—” I shake my head, staring down at my invisible feet as I walk. “Warner can touch me with no consequences. It doesn’t do anything to him. He just absorbs it.”
“Damn,” Kenji says after a moment. “Damn damn damn. This shit is bananas.”
“I know.”
“So—okay—you’re telling me that Warner saved your life? That he actually begged the girls to help him heal you? And that he then hid you in his own room, and took care of you? Fed you and gave you clothes and shit and let you sleep in his bed?”
“Yes.”
“Yeah. Okay. I have a really hard time believing that.”
“I know,” I say again, this time blowing out an exasperated breath. “But he’s really not what you guys think. I know he seems kind of crazy, but he’s actually really—”
“Whoa, wait—are you defending him?” Kenji’s voice is laced with shock. “We are talking about the same dude who locked you up and tried to make you his military slave, right?”
I’m shaking my head, wishing I could try to explain everything Warner’s told me without sounding like a naive, gullible idiot. “It’s not—” I sigh. “He didn’t actually want to use me like that—,” I try to say.
Kenji barks out a laugh. “Holy shit,” he says. “You actually believe him, don’t you? You’re buying into all the bullshit he’s fed you—”
“You don’t know him, Kenji, that’s not fair—”
“Oh my God,” he breathes, laughing again. “You are seriously going to try and tell me that I don’t know the man who led me into battle? He was my goddamn commander,” Kenji says to me. “I know exactly who he is—”
“I’m not trying to argue with you, okay? I don’t expect you to understand—”
“This is hilarious,” Kenji says, wheezing through another laugh. “You really don’t get it, do you?”
“Get what?”
“Ohhh, man,” he says suddenly. “Kent is going to be pissed,” he says, dragging out the word in glee. He actually giggles.
“Wait—what? What does Adam have to do with this?”
“You do realize you haven’t asked me a single question about him, right?” A pause. “I mean, I just told you the whole saga of all the shit that happened to us and you were just like, Oh, okay, cool story, bro, thanks for sharing. You didn’t freak out or ask if Adam was injured. You didn’t ask me what happened to him or even how he’s coping right now, especially seeing as how he thinks you’re dead and everything.”
I feel sick all of a sudden. Stopped in my tracks. Mortified and guilty guilty guilty.
“And now you’re standing here, defending Warner,” Kenji is saying. “The same guy who tried to kill Adam, and you’re acting like he’s your friend or someshit. Like he’s just some normal dude who’s a little misunderstood. Like every single other person on the planet got it wrong, and probably because we’re all just a bunch of judgmental, jealous assholes who hate him for having such a pretty, pretty face.”
Shame singes my skin.
“I’m not an idiot, Kenji. I have reasons for the things I say.”
“Yeah, and maybe I’m just saying that you have no idea what you’re saying.”
“Whatever.”
“Don’t whatever me—”
“Whatever,” I say again.
“Oh my God,” Kenji says to no one in particular. “I think this girl wants to get her ass kicked.”
“You couldn’t kick my ass if I had ten of them.”
Kenji laughs out loud. “Is that a challenge?”
“It’s a warning,” I say to him.
“Ohhhhhh, so you’re threatening me now? Little crybaby knows how to make threats now?”
“Shut up, Kenji.”
“Shut up, Kenji,” he repeats in a whiny voice, mocking me.
“How much farther do we have to go?” I ask too loudly, irritated and trying to change the subject.
“We’re almost there,” he shoots back, his words clipped.
Neither one of us speaks for a few minutes.
Then
“So . . . why did you walk all this way?” I ask. “Didn’t you say you had a tank?”
“Yeah,” Kenji says with a sigh, our argument momentarily forgotten. “We have two, actually. Kent said he stole one when you guys first escaped; it’s still sitting in his garage.”
Of course.
How could I forget?
“But I like walking,” Kenji continues. “I don’t have to worry about anyone seeing me, and I always hope that maybe if I’m on foot, I’ll be able to notice things I wouldn’t be able to otherwise. I’m still hoping,” he says, his voice tight again, “that we’ll find more of our own hidden out here somewhere.”
I squeeze Kenji’s hand again, clinging closer to him. “Me too,” I whisper.