Page 121 of Love, Nemesis
“You’d think, but just a few hours ago, he wanted to run away from Chronos. An opportunist if I ever saw one,” Lethe said into her hair.
She didn’t reply. For a moment, she just lay there against him. He wasn’t even sure she was still awake after a while.
He savored the closeness, the warmth of her body soothing some inner ache he kept forgetting he had. He rested his face against her neck and she didn’t move, Lethe closing his eyes as he listened to her pulse.
He found himself adrift in the feeling, pulling her closer to his chest.
“Lethe,” she said.
“Too close?” he breathed, simultaneously feeling exhausted and wide awake.
She didn’t reply.
He opened his eyes.
Her metallic arm rested over his knee, and he peered past her head at it, curiously examining the triggers. He pulled back her sleeve around it, examining the handiwork. He picked up one of her fingers, inspected the joints.
“What are you doing?” she mumbled.
“Just curious,” Lethe replied. “You could feel that?”
“No. My eyes are open,” she said.
So, she was just enjoying lying there with him?
He nudged the thought off, along with the compulsion to voice it.
“You beat the Strike,” she voiced the statement, but it was an inquiry, he could tell.
“Xal Xel was completely destroyed,” Lethe said. “The Strike is dead. Cal helped. That’s pretty much it.”
“Jasper, the Mystics, and basically all of my friends are apparently a part of some plot to overthrow the State and break The Great Light,” Ana replied. “I ran out of time. They attached me to Chronos right before I died. That’s pretty much it.” She mimicked Lethe’s flat demeanor, but he could sense emotions boiling under the thin veil of her exhaustion. Something else was wrong, something underneath the bare disappointment of it all.
He waited there for a moment, pondering the news. She elaborated. “The shell, a blue shell, the object of the Great Light. The State has it. They found it in the lab. And my time ran out, but they had already tied me to Chronos.” She hesitated. “My brain won’t stop.”
“Then go to sleep. It will all make more sense when you’ve slept,” he said, still admiring her arm. He turned it in his hand, touching the skin where the metal connected to the rest of her arm. As if familiar with the reaction, Ana barely seemed to notice.
“I can’t stop thinking.”
“Hmm,” Lethe said, inspecting her hair now. He curled a strand around his finger.
“What is it with you and touching things?” she said, sounding exasperated but not moving.
“Habit, I guess,” he replied.
She reached a hand up and circled his, holding it still in her hair. She curled her fingers around his palm and pulled it down so that his arm rested over her shoulder, keeping him still.
“Ana,” Lethe started. “I feel like I need to clarify something. Hailey is dead. You were there. I killed him. Do you remember when I came to get you?”
Her hand loosened slightly on his as if the news unnerved her.
“I remember,” she said, sounding a bit unsure of herself. “I saw you go up to him, I think. I didn’t understand.” She didn’t look at him. “You killed Hailey. Just like that? He’s gone?”
“He’s gone,” Lethe said, making no attempts to justify himself. He knew there was no more explaining he could do to sway her either way. She’d make up her own mind.
“He’s gone,” she repeated, in disbelief or awe, he couldn’t quite tell. She didn’t move away from him, though. He didn’t feel her tense in any way.
He didn’t regret what he’d done and hadn’t given it a second thought, but he knew that Ana, even at the risk of what would have been her life, might have rushed to save Hailey out of principle had she been of sound mind.
