“It’s time,” he said. Then he left too. Only when he took off, it felt like a door had been shut to any chance of a normal life.
The rage inside her began to eat away at her sorrow. Not replace. Her grieving for Colin would never be finished. Perhaps they were right, though. Making everyone pay would make her feel better in a small way. Not just the Solizen, but all of their society who’d allowed this inequity. They were at fault in this too, with the little value they placed on human life.
Arden sighed, swallowing back her need to cry out.
No, she couldn’t display her rage in the way she wanted to. It wouldn’t help.
If she were rational, she wouldn’t even consider the idea. Colin wouldn’t have liked it. He’d be the first person to tell her that she was taking out her anger on innocents. She needed to get a grip and refocus. Find her way out of this darkness. She needed to talk to someone who would set her straight. Remind her that there was still hope. That she could count on things getting better.
There was only one option.
Dade.
He’d give her the perspective she needed. Calm her down. Dade cared about people. It was the best thing about him: he was a shining light she could trust to tell her the truth. To calm the storm inside her.
If only she hadn’t killed his cousin. Arden swallowed back bile. She certainly wasn’t looking forward to facing him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Arden, hidden amid the food carts, stood across the street from the moonglass-and-steel cathedral. She watched the mourners come and go from Rylick’s wake, the Solizen in their dark finery, faces contorted with pain. They clutched at one another as they gave in to their grief.
Two days had passed since Colin’s funeral and six intense days since Rylick’s and Colin’s deaths. Days filled with agony and regret. Of trying to figure out what she needed to do to make sense of this mess. The grief had given way to anger, then to despair for Colin, for Rylick, and for herself. Watching the mourners made the rawness inside her feel bruised. Emotions she wasn’t ready to deal with wanted to creep out from the space she’d coiled them into. She swallowed, pushing back the tears. Strength was what she needed.
And what she didn’t have.
Dade stepped out of the doorway amid the crowd. He paused at the head of the stairs. Bitter wind blew at his hair and tugged at his cloak. From this angle, she could see sadness even as he held his shoulders back and his head high. Beside him, Saben acted as a buffer for those who sought to speak with Dade. They descended the steps together, flanked by two additional guards.
She followed the group to the quadralift closest to Wild Jacks casino. That lift always malfunctioned when it reached the Fourth Level. The light doors would dissolve and regenerate regardless of anyone waiting to use it. Which meant in order to catch up with him, she could go through Wild Jacks, up the internal casino quadralift to the Fourth Level, and cut across to meet him when the doors opened.
Her stomach did a flip as she took off at a run.
Arden’s shoulder still burned where the phase-fire had caught it. The wound was deep, but the phase-fire hadn’t done permanent damage. She’d allowed a doctor to dress it and had taken a bac-shot to avoid infection. Arden liked the pain. It was penance for her sins. It reminded her she deserved to feel anger. That she was alive.
She raced inside Wild Jacks, cutting through the gamblers, not that they paid any attention. Then exited onto the platform of Level Four, huffing a bit. Arden paused there, out of the way, yet in direct sight of the quadralift door. She hoped that when Dade saw her, he’d want to talk. He had to make the move. With the extra guards, she couldn’t get him alone. Not if he didn’t help.
If this didn’t work, well then, she’d just have to think of something else. She had to talk to him whether he wanted to see her or not.
The door opened.
Arden was strung tight. As if every nerve ending in her entire body began to sizzle. She held her breath.
Dade stood in the center of the hoverdisk inside the quadralift, facing out with his head down. The guards flanked his sides. The only one paying attention was the hulking brute who followed Dade everywhere. His hand rested on the phaser at his hip, while he darted his gaze around the platform.
Look up. Look up. Look up, she silently begged Dade.
The door of the quadralift began to turn hazy as the plasma solidified starting at his feet, working its way up.
She wanted to scream. Wanted to wave her hands or use any other means of gaining his attention. Yet she stayed silent and still, even as adrenaline thrummed, shaking her insides. Her foot tapped. Her fingers flexed over and over, drumming an incomprehensible beat.
Come on, look.
And then he lifted his head.
Their eyes met. The electric charge that always arced between them sparked and burned, a live connection that jolted her.
For a second, fear took control. He might not forgive her. Might not ever want to see her again.
She swallowed down the bile rising in her throat, steeling herself for rejection.
How else could star-crossed love end other than death and destruction?
Arden reached up to pull down her hood. Letting her features be seen, both by him and by whoever happened to be monitoring the cameras. It felt powerful, like a declaration of intent.
Dade’s face registered several emotions in quick succession: surprise, confusion, anger, resolution, hurt. It was the last that squeezed her stomach, made her heart ache as the doors solidified between them.
Then she waited. Anxiety became a living thing inside her. Whispering doubt. But she stayed because she had faith in him, in them. He would come to her.
When the doors opened once more, he was there. Alone. It was impressive how he managed that.
She exhaled in relief, feeling as if she’d shed a huge weight. Whether or not she could explain what had happened in a way he could accept, maybe even forgive, remained to be seen.
He walked out of the quadralift. She walked forward. Both watching the other as they took measured steps, to meet in the middle of the bridge connecting the two platforms.
She wanted to reach for him. Touch him. Assure herself that something she cared for had survived when she felt as if everything else had been taken away. Yet he didn’t make any move for her, so she kept her hands to herself, pressed tightly to her side.
“I only have a moment,” he said. “I stepped back into the quadralift before it closed. They’ll be here on the next hoverdisk.”
She nodded in understanding. There wasn’t much time to convince him, then. She took a deep breath, ready to plead her case. But he spoke once more.
“They’re looking for you.” He’d kept his voice low, yet didn’t lean into her as he’d always done before. That hurt. His distance knifed through her far worse than the pain in her shoulder. “I asked you to stop the vendetta against my family. And now look what’s happened.”
“I know.”