Page 66 of Creatures that Breathe

My heart chucks itself at my chest, pounding against those words: Better. Alone.

Enough procrastinating. I have to guarantee that Draven will not be my future.

In the bedroom, a breakfast tray has gone cold. I wipe a line of syrup off the plate and set it gently on my tongue before sealing it in, letting it seep over my tastebuds, like it’s a fresh drop from the River Lethe about to cleanse me of every Draven related memory.

I’m starving.

Rich slants of afternoon sun warm the narrow wood floors and sugar scents the air, creating a happy haze, and yet Cross’s bedroom exudes a hollowness, as if it’s not quite home.

Voices clash in the hall, low, angry. I startle, knocking the syrup decanter into the valley of strawberries. “No,” I mutter, fumbling to fix it, using waffles like sponges, licking my fingers.

The door opens. I spin, cheeks ablaze.

“A fork?” Cross asks as he kicks the door shut. “Which step of the Great Plan involves eating me?”

Whipped cream dissolves into a puddle of golden goo. “I would’ve preferred a knife, but it seems hostages aren’t privy to slicing their food.”

“Leni, if you wish for me to cut your drowning waffles, say the word. But if you’re thinking of killing me, knives are in the top drawer. Left side.” He nods at the dresser. “The fork will just piss me off.”

He scrubs at the start of dark scruff on his jaw.

He’s different. Tired, as if our time apart was years for him and mere hours for me. Sunken, purple under-eyes, red on his lip, hair messy, like he’s been pulling it. Again.

Even the bands on his wrists seem dull.

“And you’re not a hostage,” he adds.

“You locked the door and left me without so much as a book for entertainment.”

“Didn’t you hear some asshole broke the bathroom lock? I was trying to give you some privacy.” He stalks to the dresser, opens the bottom drawer, and sets a red deck of cards on top. “Entertainment. I figured you’d snoop.”

Nope! Too busy alternating the shower spray from hot to cold to hot to stop associating him with warm wet skin, like your run-of-the-mill depraved training exercise. “I didn’t.”

He fits the card stack between his thumb and middle finger, a comfortable, I-know-cards gesture, and fans the suits. “For the best, I suppose. There’s only so many games of solitaire the body can withstand.”

Spoken like he’s tried. “That’s when you play the variations,” I tell him. “Pyramid, Four Seasons, Gate, Aces Up, Fourteen Out.”

“Variations.” He snaps the deck shut. “You like cards?”

“I enjoy strategy.”

“But exclusively single player?” His mouth kicks up at the side. “Let me guess, no opponent matches up to you.”

It’s flattering.

And wrong. I never beat Yaya. “I had no one to play with,” I admit, keeping my chin. “I grew up … not alone, but alone. Always surrounded, never actually involved.” No one wanted to talk to—much less go a couple rounds of Euchre—with Draven’s fiancée. Too afraid to offend him or convinced I was insane for marrying him. As if Kadmos hadn’t preordained the union with Yaya herself, back when she’d believed they’d win the war.

Cross’s response is a dry, “Right.” And then his teeth are terrorizing his lip anew and the cards are split, stacked, and released.

Rain begins to patter lightly outside, and the sunbeams dim and slowly wash out.

The silence is deafening.

The five feet between us feel as wide as the Sahara. As daunting.

“—you didn’t eat.”

“—is this really your room?”

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