Page 84 of A Liar's Twisted Tongue

“No, I’m coming.” I still feel dizzy, and a little emotional, like I’m going to cry at any moment. “This is my problem. I’ll take care of it.”

“With a dislocated shoulder and a stab wound?” he questions.

“Yes!”

“Then grab his shoulders,” Lucian says, and I can tell it’s a challenge.

I walk slowly to the body on the ground, and when I try to lift him, I fall. The strain on my shoulder is too much. My vision goes white, and I have no choice but to let go of the body.

The body. That’s all this man is now, a body. What if he wasn’t trying to kill me? What if he saw me clearly, despite his shadows, and aimed for my shoulder on purpose?

I aimed for his shoulder too, I remind myself. But that doesn’t make it better. Suddenly, I’m looking at Lucian and saying, “I aimed for his shoulder. I swear. I–I couldn’t see in the shadows, but I was aiming for his shoulder. I swear?—”

He sits next to me, inches from the body. “It’s alright,” he says softly, too softly. He never talks this softly. His eyes are on mine, and his hands are too. “I believe you.” Those three words are the emotional embodiment of putting shadows in my wound to stop the bleeding. I don’t know why it matters to me that he believes me, but it does. It really does.

Lucian opens a portal, then lifts the body. The body. I’ve been here before, but it doesn’t feel real. It never did.

When we’re on the coast, I sit on the sand with my knees to my chest and watch Lucian pull the man to the sea. I’m shaking too much, rocking back and forth and fighting a chill that isn’t coming from the cold.

Then I spot a knife strapped to the dead man’s waistband, its hilt iridescent in the moonlight. Moonstone.

I get up, put my arm on Lucian’s chest while I walk to the top of the body, closest to the water. I duck down near his chest, and I spot the seal of Soma, tiny and covered by a scrap of fabric.

“You told me I’d be safe here,” I whisper without looking at him. My eyes are locked on the Soman seal. “And now I’ve killed someone because I trusted you.” Another someone.

He looks at me guiltily, and suddenly I think that he has both my weapons. Is this all a setup? It couldn’t be. It could be. He could’ve been lying to me this entire time. But to what end, for what purpose?

“If it wasn’t you it would’ve been me.” I hate how soft his voice is. “That man wasn’t making it out alive tonight. Not after what he did to you.”

“That’s not enough! I trusted you,” I whisper, my voice breaking. “You said I’d be safe here.” But I’m a murderer in the septic too. It’s not like I had anywhere to actually go. I’m equivalent to homeless, in my heart at least. I don’t belong anywhere.

I’m a killer everywhere.

Three people. Two Folk and a Lucent, dead at my hands. No matter where I go, I can never shed the bodies. The blood doesn’t stop at the hands, because I’m covered in it. I’m surprised no one sees it when I walk the halls of this school.

Now Lucian will, if he doesn’t kill me right here and now. But he’s had every opportunity to kill me, and I’m the only killer here.

“I don’t want to be a killer,” I whisper, saliva stopping me from enunciating my words properly. “I don’t want to be a killer,” I say again, but say is a sad excuse for what I really sound like. Cry is more like it. I don’t want to cry. I wipe my tears and bite my tongue before he can see. I want Lucian to believe that I would slit his throat if he told someone. That if he comes close, I will burn him.

Crying about not wanting to be a killer isn’t the way to do that.

Lucian sits next to me, and I can’t bring myself to move. Maybe I could burn him, if he makes any move. But I don’t think that I actually think he will. I don’t know. I wish I had the strength to push him away. Because if he’s not here to kill me, he’s here to comfort me, and I don’t want to be coddled, I want to be feared. But I don’t think I look very scary right now.

“You won’t be the same,” he says in that soft tone again. “But you’ll be alright.”

And all it takes are those words for me to break entirely. I fall into myself, my head and shoulders collapse, and Lucian pulls me into his chest. It feels good to be held, and for a moment I feel safe again, like I’m five years old and the war hasn’t begun and I’m sitting on my mom’s lap with a cup of hot water while she tells me her stories. Her life before the septic.

For a moment, everything is okay in the world. Nothing bad has happened to me yet and I’m not a killer. I breathe in the scent—pine and something sweeter that chills my nostrils as I inhale it. It’s comforting. Familiar and foreign. The fine line between childhood and what lies ahead for me, but I don’t want to think about that quite yet. I just want to be held.

Lucian strokes the back of my head, brushing through my hair with his fingers, sending ripples of sensation down my spine. And when he softly says, “You’ll be alright,” I realize I’m still crying. I don’t try to stop the tears this time, I just let them go.

You’ll be alright.

* * *

Lucian takes me back to my suite, but when he’s knocking at Wendy’s door, I’m instantly confused. I’ve managed to do little more than nod since breaking down. I’m still breaking down. My shoulder’s gone numb, or maybe I have, and every time I close my eyes I see the dead Lucent and sometimes the dead Folk.

Wendy opens the door. Her gaze meets Lucian’s, and it’s so full of emotion that I feel like I’m intruding on some kind of moment. “What happened to you?” she whispers.

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