Page 80 of 10 Days to Ruin

Instead, I nod, throat tight. His heartbeat thuds against my spine, perfectly in sync with mine. Above us, through the opening in the treetops, the Milky Way bleeds across the sky, indifferent to our stupid, human messiness.

I focus on them, hoping I can forget, too.

“That one’s Orion,” I whisper, pointing.

“Mm.” His chin brushes my hair.

“And there’s Ursa Major. The Big Dipper.”

I can feel his attention fix on me. “Who taught you that?”

“My sister. During… bad nights” I answer, in a funny-but-not-funny reversal of our conversation about the fire and his mother. “When my mom and dad were fighting a lot, we’d sneak out on the roof to stargaze. It was New York, so, y’know—not much in the way of stars. Mostly satellites and airplanes. But she’d make up constellations. And some nights—rare nights—we really could see stars.”

His arms tighten. Silence stretches, swollen.

I’m half-naked against his chest, bearing my soul in the middle of the dark, deserted wilderness. Vulnerable in a way that’s more terrifying than the storm.

“Tell me something real,” I say suddenly. Whatever game this is, I’m losing. Badly. I need to even the score.

He stills. “Like what?”

“I don’t know. Just, like, a secret. A memory. Something you’ve never told anyone.”

The wind howls. Just when I think he’ll shut me out, he speaks. “When I was twelve, my father locked me in a freezer for talking back.” His voice is detached. Borderline lifeless. “Told me I could come out when I stopped crying.”

My chest cracks. “Sasha…”

“I told you about the first time I killed a man. The smuggler in the alley. The jammed gun, the broken bottle. What I didn’t tell you is that I threw up afterward. In an alley behind a kebab shop.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“You asked.”

“But whythesethings?”

He’s quiet so long, I’m sure that this time he really won’t answer. Then?—

“So that tomorrow, when you look at me again, you’ll remember what I really am. Not the man who builds fires or holds you close to keep you warm. Not the man who lets you lead him on a wild goose chase up a mountain even when he knows that’s exactly what you intended to do. I’m not that, Ariel. I’m something else.”

I twist in his arms, searching his face. “What are you?”

“A monster.”

The stars blur. “Sasha?—”

“Sleep, Ariel.” He tucks my head under his chin. “We’re here ‘til dawn.”

I want to argue. To dissect every scar, every sin. To demand that he prove himself wrong. But his thumb strokes circles on my hip, and the fire’s last sputtering embers paint him in gold. And suddenly, I’m a child again—terrified of the dark, clinging to the first warmth I’ve felt in years.

His breath evens.

His grip, though, never loosens.

And somewhere in the heart of the night, between the howl of coyotes and the rush of wind surging through the ravine, I realize the terrible, horrible, undeniable truth:

I don’t want these ten days to end.

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