Page 180 of Kingmakers, Graduation

“You were hit!” I cry.

“So were you.”

He points to the deep groove on my left arm.

“It grazed me.” I try to peer at the wound through the blood and rain. “Or it went right through.”

I remember the bite on my calf and examine that too, but it proves to be only a pencil-thick splinter of wood kicked up from the floor. Adrik pulls it out.

“We’d better go inside,” he says. “Before we fucking freeze.”

We limp into the trailer, the steps creaking beneath our combined weight.

Jasper, Vlad, Andrei, Hakim, and Chief are already inside.

Once we’re up the steps, Misha slams the door behind us and locks it. She turns off the neon sign and most of the interior lights, plunging us into a cozy darkness illuminated only by the lamp over Alla’s prep station and the soft golden glow of the jukebox in the corner.

Vlad has ripped the sleeve off his shirt to make a tourniquet around his thigh. He’s sitting in a vinyl booth, eating a plate of Alla’s fries, ignoring the small puddle of blood around his boot.

Andrei and Alla are fussing over Hakim. Hakim sits at the counter so Alla can examine his shoulder. She clicks her tongue in dismay, trying to roll the sleeve of his shirt up over his shoulder without hurting him. She dyed her hair bright green since the last time I saw her. It suits her.

When she goes hunting for a first-aid kit, Hakim throws me the delighted grin of a little kid at his first birthday party. He resumes his expression of pained anguish as soon as Alla reemerges.

Chief sits down beside Misha and starts leafing through her science textbooks, asking her questions so complicated that I can’t understand either of them.

Adrik and I sink into Jasper’s booth. Jasper regards me wryly, the bones on his knuckles resting against the tattooed molars and mandible on his jaw.

“So you’re back,” he says.

“Yeah. Is that okay?”

“God, I hope so,” he says, jerking his head at Adrik. “He’s been a fucking mess without you.”

“Have you?” I say, turning to Adrik. “You looked so hot when you showed up Krystiyan’s house … it made me feel like shit.”

“I was dying inside, believe me.”

“So was I.” I take his hand and press his knuckles to my swollen lips. “Every fucking day.”

Adrik looks at my bruised face. His expression is so murderous that it sends a chill down my back.

“Cujo’s lucky he’s dead,” he snarls. Then, shaking his head, “How the fuck did you manage that, anyway?”

“Oh, it was so rad,” I try to grin without splitting my lip again. “I wish you could have seen it. I was like,dasvidanya bitch!And I blew him up.”

“You didn’t really say that, did you?” Jasper says, looking supremely disappointed in me.

“No,” I admit, disappointed in myself. “I wish I did.”

Adrik slides out of the booth, limping over to the jukebox with his hand pressed to his side. He feeds in a couple of coins, then scrolls down the list with his finger before making his selection,Anyone Who Knows What Love Isby Irma Thomas.

The music fills the tiny trailer, light and silvery and wistful.

Adrik holds out his hand to me.

I join him on the checkered tiles, my arms around his neck, his hands gripping my hips. We’re both so beat up that we can’t really dance—all we can do is sway.

I lay my head against his chest and listen to his heart beating, low and steady, beneath the music.

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