“Of course she was,” Yael groaned, cutting into my tirade.
“And the next click,” I forcefully continued, ignoring Yael, “he was grabbing me and throwing me around and giving me stupid nicknames, and bam! He did the linky thing.”
“Bam,” Siret echoed, still looming close to my face, his attention flicking between my eyes. “The linky thing.”
“Right.” I attempted to nod, but he was still holding my face. “So how do I break it? How do I transfer it? Or reverse it? Or whatever needs to be done.”
“I’ll try something,” Siret muttered, and then he was looming even closer.
I felt his breath on my lips, and I might have stopped breathing for a fraction of a click.
“What the hell is he doing?” Coen asked loudly.
“True love’s first kiss,” Siret shot back smoothly, not even missing a beat. “Isn’t that supposed to solve everything?”
The words were spoken right against my lips, and I was trying not to press forward and force it to happen. Already, I was leaning closer. My hands were somehow gripping his shirt, and my body was somehow pressed up against his. I had clearly been the one to do it, because he hadn’t moved at all, but I had no memory of it and therefore couldn’t be held accountable for it.
“Wait—what the fuck did he just say?” Rome grunted, sounding halfway appalled and halfway disbelieving.
There was a chuckle against my lips. Siret still wasn’t kissing me. That fact was annoying … until I realised what he had said.
“Wait—what?” I more or less repeated Rome, pulling my head back several inches. Siret let me go, and the look on his face was pure, evil amusement. “Oh my gods!” I swung out, punching him hard in the chest, before yelping and cradling my arm against myself, attempting to rub away the ache. “What is wrong with you, Five!”
“And this whole time you thought I was the good brother?” he asked with an arch to one perfect brow, tapping me beneath the chin. He was staring at my mouth now, as though he wanted to drag me back up against him. “I’m the brother that makes bad jokes while everyone else is trying to save your life.”
“It’s true,” Aros added, sounding a little bit exasperated. “You really should have seen that coming.”
“Have you finished playing yet, doll?” a voice asked from the trees.
I didn’t need to look to know who it was. There was only one person who would call me that, which meant that our impossible situation had just become even worse. The Abcurses all blurred into motion, somehow knowing just what each of them needed to do with only a single, shared look. Siret and Aros stepped to either side of me while Yael stood in front of me. I could barely see around him, but I could see enough to know that Coen and Rome were advancing toward the trees. Coen was taking Point. His pace wasn’t fast: it was cautious, as though he expected Cyrus to jump out of the trees and bite his neck or something. I didn’t really think Cyrus was the ‘jumping out of trees’ type, so I wasn’t at all surprised to see him casually step out into the open and walk toward the other two.
He had ditched his white robes and was now shirtless, with only a pair of white pants tucked into white leather boots. I wondered if he had been halfway through changing when he realised I wasn’t in his cave anymore. I also kind of wanted to know if he wore white underwear and only put white sugar in his Neutral tea. The colour-schemes of the gods were starting to annoy me, but there was the smallest amount of guilt in the back of my mind that I had forced Cyrus to emerge into Topia before he’d even had a chance to dress properly. That I snuck away from him without an explanation, which probably meant that he had no idea if I had been captured, or was being stomped to death by raging bullsen. I mean, would he know if I died?
“You need to step aside and hand her over,” Cyrus demanded calmly, bringing my attention back to the situation. He had stopped in front of Coen and Rome.
All my guilt drained away, then, because he had force-linked my soul to his power, and he had kidnapped me in the first place. I had thought that I was pretty smart to get away and escape without him catching me, but apparently he had godly tracking skills or something.
“Let’s not fight about this right now,” I quickly said, jumping away from Siret and Aros, and running over to Rome. I grabbed his arm, because I didn’t want him to go all ‘Crusher mad!’ on the person whose power my soul was apparently feeding on. “I actually have a really good solution to all of this. I think everyone will be happy with it.”
Rome—who had been about to break my grip of his arm and probably punch Cyrus just to spite my attempts to hold him back—narrowed his eyes on me. Coen turned his head to look back at me, and Cyrus squinted at me.
Why the hell does everyone look so suspicious?
“Because you’re not … how do I say this …” Cyrus was answering my angry thought, his eyes still squinting at me, his arms folding over his bare chest. “Ah yes. Intelligent. You’re not intelligent enough to come up with solutions.”
I quickly swallowed down my anger, because I had a plan, dammit. I wasn’t going to let Neutral-dick goad me into forgetting about it.
“You’re wrong,” I stated, and I was proud that I sounded almost calm. “I do have a solution.” I released Rome and slipped past Coen, moving to stand in front of Cyrus.
When I was almost there, I stumbled over absolutely nothing, and fell face-first onto the ground. Deliberately. Nobody else seemed to realise it was deliberate, though. I could hear Coen groaning beneath his breath as I reached out for a rock on the ground. An arm looped around my middle, and I quickly gripped the rock as I was set back onto my feet. Coen had been the one to pick me up, but it looked like Cyrus had attempted to, because Rome was holding him back at arm’s length.
“Was that your grand plan?” Cyrus asked, his tone condescending.
He shifted a look to Rome, who backed off.
“I don’t know,” I stepped forward and swung the rock at his head as hard as I could. “You tell me.”
I connected with his skull and the crunch was almost sickening. His pale eyes went wide, and his hand pulled up halfway to his head, as though he would touch the spot where I had smashed the rock, before it fell down again, completely slack. I watched as his large body crumpled.
“What the fuck, Willa?” one of the guys blurted—Yael, I was pretty sure. “I know what your accidents look like and that was definitely not an accident!”
I tossed the rock aside, spinning to face the others. They were all staring at me as though I had grown a second head. And murderous tendencies.
“No.” I tried to keep from rolling my eyes. “It’s a solution! We can leave now! We’ll just take him with us.”