Page 73 of Wicked Court

“I don’t like this line of questioning.”

“I can stop,” she says lightly. “If you answer one question.”

My gaze narrows, wondering what she’s up to.

Instead of agreeing outright, I say, “You get one question.”

She doesn’t hesitate. “What do you wish people knew about you that they don’t?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“That’s not an answer.”

“You didn’t say I couldn’t ask a question of my own.”

Her lips pinch, caught in her own trap. “All right. I assume you know everything there is to know about me.” She nods toward my hip. “Especially with that phone of yours and what you told me in the basement. The four of you had full access to my body and know my history better than even I knew. I figure I deserve to know a few things about you.”

If the other three were with me, Elara’s reasoning would be met with a swift not in your lifetime, sweetheart.

But they’re not.

And I like her question.

After a moment of heavy silence, I answer, my voice low and tinged with bitterness. “Most people see me and think I’m slow, an idiot, because I have to repeat things to myself to remember them. It’s like I’m constantly fighting to keep the fog at bay, to latch onto something solid in my mind. What they don’t get ... what I wish they understood is that this struggle doesn’t define my intelligence. Behind this face they’ve labeled as forgetful or dim, there’s a mind that’s always working overtime, trying to piece together fragments of every moment, every order, every face.”

Her lashes lower, and she folds her arms, but her voice is gentle. “I already knew that about you, Axe.”

My brows rise. At no point did I think she’d take the time to see behind my manipulations and orders to break her.

“Try again,” she prompts.

So I do.

“There’s more to me. Choices I’ve never been able to make, words I’ve swallowed, dreams I’ve had to bury. I’ve been a pawn for so long, fighting not to lose myself completely in the underworld the Court has pushed me into. Since I was a kid, they see the punching bag, then the tool, the weapon... not the man who craves a single moment of real freedom, not from the physical chains, but from the ones in here”—I tap my chest over my heart—”crafted by a lifetime of being told I’m nothing more than damaged goods.”

Elara’s brows come down and her face takes on an expression I can only describe as heartbroken. “Is that why you have memory lapses? You were abused so badly as a child, you experienced head trauma?”

Acid rises from my gut, scalds my throat. “One question. One answer. You got both. Let’s go.”

“Axe—”

She reaches for my arm as I twist away, my vision blinded with memories, screams, broken pleas. For a terrible moment, her hand becomes my foster parent’s and I wrench away like I am that five-year-old again, and he is the undefeated giant.

And she falls.

“Elara!” I bellow as my heart leaps into my throat.

Time snaps and shatters into shards of frozen moments. I’m plunged into another section of my mind, one where I’m screaming the name, “Mariana!” and reaching out for somebody, my hands small like a child’s.

I wrench out of it on a choked breath and into Elara’s wide eyes, the startled gasp lodged in her throat, her fingers clutching at thin air thrusting into my vision.

Me, rushing to catch her, but not soon enough.

A ragged scream rips from her as she plummets down the rocky incline.

I lunge after her, my palm scraping against craggy rock, but the pain barely registers in the surge of adrenaline and blind panic. I skid on loose stones, momentum hurling me towards her.

In between blinks, I am at her side with agility born from harsh training drills and instinctual preservation. My hand meets her shoulder, halting her descent inches before a dangerously sharp drop. The gasp that escapes her mouth is filled with relief and incredulous terror—mirroring the emotions that live in my chest.

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