Chris stared at me for a while. I looked away. I couldn’t tell what sort of judgment he was passing. What I was suggesting was ludicrous. And yet . . .
“You’re not running away screaming,” I ventured, trying to make my voice light.
“Not yet,” he said. He grinned. Then it slipped. “This is . . . this is all a lot to process. I mean, a few weeks ago all I could think of was graduating and maybe getting your attention. Now there’s . . . all this. What do we do now?”
I shrugged.
“We stay the fuck out of it.” I glanced to the crows. “Nothing good comes from messing with the gods. Nothing. This isn’t a battle we can fight.”
“So, what? We just hope no one else gets hurt?”
“I don’t know if there’s anything else we can do,” I said. I hated myself for it. “These are gods, Chris. You can’t fight a god. And neither of us summoned them or whatever when we were saved. I think this might be out of our control.”
“Bullshit,” he whispered. “I know you don’t mean that. You’re not the type to just give in; it’s not fair to anyone.”
“Fair?” My voice was too loud, borderline hysterical, but I forced it back to submission. “Fair? What about this is fair, Chris? Our friends dying? You and I getting spared? I’ve spent every single day of my life thinking that I was alive not because I was special, but because I was willing to do something terrible to survive. How the hell is that fair?”
But he was right. We both knew he was right. I just hated that he was perceptive enough to notice.
“You know what I’m talking about,” he said quietly. “What if Ethan was next? Or Oliver? Or Elisa. Hell, what if it was you or me? None of us are safe, Kaira, even if it is out of our control.”
“We can’t do this, Chris. We can’t interfere; we have a debt. We’re here because we’re vessels. They keep mentioning a war and how we have to fight. But it’s not us doing the fighting. We were spared because the gods need bodies to inhabit if they’re going to battle each other. The moment we open up to them, the moment we let our guard down, bam. We’re no longer Chris and Kaira. We’re hosts. And I’m not ready to give up this life. Not just yet. And neither should you.”
“But if this is happening to others . . .” he began.
“It means there are more gods on the playing field. I don’t know what’s going on, Chris, but they’re preparing for a war. And I have a terrible feeling you and I aren’t the only ones who are being prepped as cannon fodder.”
I expected conversation to be stilted after that; I mean, it’s not like talking about gods taking over our bodies and killing our friends was an everyday conversation. But the moment we left the woods and headed into the cafeteria, we slipped back into our old modes. We barely talked, but if we did, it was about classwork. Since we’d missed most of lunch, the cafeteria was largely empty, and the table we normally shared with Ethan and the rest was abandoned. We ate fast and pretty much in silence, and not one part of me gave a shit about the rumors I knew would be circulating after we’d spent this much time together. Let people think we were dating; it clearly didn’t matter anymore.
And yet, every time I glanced at him I wondered if maybe those rumors wouldn’t be unfounded. I mean, we’d definitely rocketed past the whole teen-angst-romance thing. This wasn’t a crush. We were bound by something I couldn’t place, something I didn’t necessarily want to be a part of, and it didn’t matter that he was cute or intense or sensitive. He had a secret similar to mine, and that meant we would always be in the other’s orbit. For better or worse.
When we finally got up to leave, it felt like committing a crime. Like we shouldn’t be parting ways—we needed to stick together. Which was stupid, because I was just heading to class and would be seeing him after . . .
Shit.
“I can’t go to the movie tonight,” I said as we left the cafeteria.
“What? Why not?”
“I have a tutorial.” I couldn’t have sounded less excited if I tried.
“Skip it,” he said. “You’re a senior.”
“I can’t.” Which was true. And it had nothing to do with learning academics. Jonathan knew something about all of this, I was certain. If there was any way to figure out what was going on without actually losing myself in the process, it was through him. A part of me wanted to tell Chris about the sketch and Jonathan’s reaction, but I didn’t want him to get too hopeful. Not when lives were on the line. “I have to talk to Jonathan about my thesis tomorrow. Apparently some professors are upset over the subject matter.”
Which I knew was a lie. I mean, maybe they were upset, but I knew it wasn’t the real reason Jonathan insisted on me coming to meet with him. He wasn’t the only one used to telling half-truths through lies.
“Sucks,” Chris said. He looked to his feet, then to me. “What are we going to do now?”