Page 132 of Indigo Sky

“Well, that’s okay because, I mean, obviously, I won’t be dancing for a while,” she said, attempting a joke neither of us seemed to find funny. “Actually, if I’m being honest, I think I’m done for good.”

“Really?”

She nodded softly. “Really.”

“So, no more Indigo Sky?”

She shook her head and opened her mouth to speak before closing it immediately. Once, twice, three times … like she had something to add, but couldn’t quite find the strength to say it.

But that was okay.

I filled in the blank spaces myself.

What had remained of Indigo Sky was gone. She had been stripped away, stolen, and murdered, alongside Angela. There wasn’t anything left. What remained in her wake was this woman.

Broken, battered … but breathing.

She was alive.

I had saved her.

And whatever she did next … she was going to do it as Kate McLaughlin.

And I was gonna do it with her.

***

“And … well, uh … yeah, so that’s basically the gist of it,” I said, slumping into my chair in the hospital cafeteria.

Saul sat across from me, his jaw set and his eyes focused on a drop of spilled coffee on the table between us. He hadn’t said much since I’d started telling him the story of my childhood, my relationship with Nate, how I had come to be at Midnight Lotus—every event that had brought us to this moment now, a whole twenty-four hours after Nate and I had rescued Kate from Donny’s vengeful wrath. Just a grunt here and there or a subtle movement of his brow was about the extent of Saul’s response to what I had just told him, and now, I shifted awkwardly on this plastic chair, which was growing increasingly more uncomfortable by the second.

A groan ripped through his throat as he pressed his eyes shut and dragged his hands over his face before dropping them to the table. He leaned back, and although I knew he was about to speak, he kept his focus on that drop of coffee.

“That’s quite a story, Revan,” he said, his voice gruff.

Hearing my full name come from Saul’s lips felt suddenly worse than when Mom had scolded me as a child.

I didn’t know what else to say, so I said, “It’s not a story though. It’s what happened.”

“Yeah, I got that.”

He folded his hands on the table as he turned his fiery glare on me. Finally revealing the anger he held within his eyes, which I doubted came close to what he felt. Whether that anger wasdirected at me remained to be seen, but my nerves jolted into overdrive anyway.

“I should wanna kill you,” Saul said, low and menacing. “You and thatfriendof yours.”

I held his glare, but said nothing. I didn’t so much asbreatheas he stared straight through me toward my trembling, cowering soul.

“You swore you’d never hurt one of the girls. You promised … but—" He released a sigh, slumping his shoulders while shaking his head. “I don’t know what I would’ve done if you hadn’t been there to stop that sick son of a bitch.”

In the blink of an eye, his anger was swept away with a rush of despair. His forehead crumpled, and he clapped a hand over his mouth, keeping his eyes trained on me as he shook his head slowly.

I had spent hours feeling like shit and beating myself up. After lying in bed with Kate until she fell asleep, after feeling sure of her forgiveness, I had thought I'd moved beyond the guilt. But now, having Saul look at me like this, I couldn't help but remind myself that it had all happened because I'd left.

Yet …

With that remorse came something else. Something that felt a lot like that look in his watery gaze.

Pride.

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