Chosen - Kiersten White Page 0,91
the days they trained together? He must have. He was always the most careful, the most precise. The most controlled. Because unlike the rest of them, his inner demons were literal. Does that make them easier to fight, though? When they have a name, a species, a neat little Latin classification?
Artemis’s own demons aren’t so easily defined. She can’t forget the look on Nina’s face as she pushed Artemis toward safety. Yes, Nina brought down the wall by trying to hit Artemis so hard even Artemis doesn’t know if she would have recovered, but Nina also shoved her out of harm’s way. And then Artemis left her there. Buried.
It’s gnawing at her, wriggling inside like an infection. Maybe she’s doing the wrong thing. Maybe she betrayed her sister and stole a friend and manipulated the only girl she’s ever loved and none of it will work out. She wasn’t chosen, after all. She never wins. Not really.
She looks away from Leo in the cage, focusing on her girlfriend, who’s checking the other cages in these caverns and marking down demonic inventory. “How’d you get him to go with you?” Artemis asks Honora.
Honora looks up from her pad. “Same way someone could make me willingly walk to my doom.” She looks back down, swallowing but keeping her expression light and disinterested. “Threaten the person I love most in the whole world.”
It’s the closest Honora has come to saying I love you. Neither of them has. Maybe neither of them is capable of it, after the ways they were raised. Maybe Artemis doesn’t deserve it and never will. Artemis’s throat aches, her eyes burn.
Her voice comes out a whisper so she won’t cry. “What if it’s the person you love most in the world who’s leading you to doom?”
“Then I would die like I wanted to live. Believing in her. Fighting at her side.”
Artemis wipes under her eyes. She will win. She has to. For Honora. For Nina. But most of all for herself, so she can be the person she needs to be to deserve any of this. To be strong enough to keep it. “For the record, I love you too.”
Honora closes her eyes. The look on her face is so raw and private that Artemis knows to turn away. To give Honora time alone to feel everything she needs to. Artemis just hopes they have enough time left.
She walks across a catwalk and sits next to Leo where he’s leaning against the rough stone wall of the cavern that forms the back of his cage. On one of the metal catwalks nearby, chains are being welded to the platform in front of the thing that will solve all of Artemis’s problems. Including the pain she feels thinking about Nina. When Nina sees the results, she’ll understand. And Honora won’t have to worry about anything, ever again.
There’s scraping and moaning and a few sharp snarls. A line of chained demons is being arranged, prodded into place by the black-cloaked zealots. Artemis hates the Sleeping One worshippers with an instinctive self-preservation and has done what she could to avoid speaking to any of them. How long have they been working on these caverns? Or have the caverns always been here, ready and waiting?
“Why?” Leo asks.
Artemis doesn’t look at him. “What would you do to protect my sister?”
“Anything.”
“Me too.” Artemis is only half lying. She would do anything. Has done everything. And it didn’t matter. Ever since the day she had to watch Nina get left behind in that fire, she’s been trying to protect her and failing at it. She couldn’t protect Nina from the pain of her crush on Leo, from the rejection of the Watchers, from the dismissal of her healing interests and efforts to improve things. She couldn’t protect either of them from the heartbreak of a cold, distant mother. Or from the death of their father. She would love to be able to protect Nina. Will love to be able to.
But more than that, she wants to protect herself. She can’t deny it. Not after what she’s done to get to this point.
Artemis doesn’t want to hurt anymore. She doesn’t want to have to watch these things happen and not be able to fix them. She doesn’t want Watchers like her father to die, or people like Honora to work every day to undo and hide the damage done by her own mother. She doesn’t want Nina to have to be a Slayer, to risk her life