Page 140 of Cage of Starlight
His eyes dart up to find Sena—and he’sclose,shaking and barely standing, and what’s to keep Kirlov from turning the gun on Sena after he kills Tory? Sena darts toward Kirlov, reckless.
Tory thinksno,and every part of him blazes with it.
This is not how it ends, in the dark at the hands of the man who’s hurt Sena for so long. This prison is not the last place either of them will ever see. He won’t stand for it.
The muddled energy slowing his thoughts and his limbs sharpens into something fine and focused. Kirlov stops, stone still, and makes a sick gurgle.
Three braided roots drive all the way through his chest andshit, Sena was behind him—
But Sena stands unharmed. The bloody vines curl out of Kirlov and around and behind Sena as if to hold him up. Slowly, they withdraw, and Sena lifts his hand from the back of Kirlov’s neck. The man who thought he could control Sena crumples like a puppet, stringless. The back of Kirlov’s neck—where Sena bears his scar—is matte-black, dried-up and dead.
“Nice,” Tory breathes. He grabs the lid for the containment box and drops it back on, trying to stomp it closed as the roots draw back inside, at rest.
One peeks through the tiny gap where the metal is crumpled, and Tory thinksnoagain.
It withdraws as if stung. Tory closes it into his pack and swings it back onto his shoulder.
“Ha! That was—that was . . . What thefuck.” He’s never telling Helner about this. She’ll come at him with needles and knives. “Sorry, I mean, you clearly had it covered. I—I didn’t even think, it just . . . I think that thing likes me, maybe.”
“I don’t think it’s capable of liking anyone,” Sena murmurs. He stares down at Kirlov, stock-still and waiting. “He’s—is he . . .?”
Tory kicks the corpse. “Deader than dead. A shame. Would’ve liked to zaphima bit, make him dance.”
“He’s . . .” Sena exhales a voiceless laugh and shifts his gaze up to Tory. A smile breaks over his face, and he looksyoung, overjoyed and disbelieving, shaking. He shields his expression with a bare hand as the laughs turn to quiet sobs. His right shoulder against the wall bears all his weight. “You came back.” It’s more breath than sound.
“’Course I did.” Tory has never wanted to hold a person more. His hands clench at his sides before he realizes he doesn’t have to restrain himself, probably. He pulls Sena in, as gentle as he can manage for all the broken bits, and regrets it almost immediately, because how is anyone supposed to do this?
Sena seems to feel the same. He goes ramrod straight, and Tory moves to withdraw. “Sorry, I wasn’t—”
“Don’t. It’s f—it’s just . . . Stay.” Only one arm—the left one—goes around Tory’s back, careful and light. Almost too quiet to hear, Sena whispers, “Stay with me.”
“As long as you’ll let me.” Tory smiles. It’s better, that they’re both shit at this.
Sena chokes out another one of those wrenching laugh-sobs and trembles against Tory, hooking his chin over Tory’s shoulder.
Sena sighs, warm and slow, but it catches on the exhale. He staggers.
If the world were fair, Tory would be able to keep him from falling, but he’s not bearing any of his own weight, and Tory can’t bear it for him. They both fall, and Tory’s knees crack against stone. He hisses in a breath but doesn’t scream.
Sena hits with the same force.
He doesn’t breathe at all.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Tory holds on. Sena’s forehead tips onto his shoulder. His hands hang at his sides, lit awful red with each pulse of the emergency strips.
The wall he leaned on—clinical white and gray and powder blue—is slashed through with a dark stain.
“Sena?”
Quiet, steady, something drips to the floor. A blackish trail marks Sena’s passage through the hall behind him. Tory’s hands jump to Sena’s shoulders, then his back, and come away wet. “Sena.”
No answer. No sound. No reassuring breath against his shoulder where Sena’s hair tickles at his nape. Tory presses two fingers to the artery at his neck.
This is what a heart feels like before it fades: a thready, shivering pulse.
Another, off-rhythm—
