them even had a chance to get their wings."
"Oh." I open my eyes.
"Everybody I found, every investigation I opened to find evidence of Bellion’s wrong doings... all led to nothing. Cordelia acts as if she doesn't know who could possibly be behind it but she also doesn't care to stop it. Every girl...," he breathes, "every girl started to look like you. Their bodies limp and fragile on the floor. The blood stains...I didn't want to open my mind. I didn't want to be closer with you. If I did then your death would only hurt that much worse. I've claimed you though I know it will bring you shame. Maybe I hate myself for it, I'm not sure. Now you've claimed me... and it makes me so... so happy." His hands shake but he wraps them around his stomach quickly. "We are dangerous." His eyes flash in warning. He turns to me quickly. "I can feel it."
I nod my head because I know exactly what he is talking about. "I'd burn the entire world down before I ever let someone take you away from me."
Slowly, with the creeping length of the warm sunrise, a smile lifts his lips. It doesn't reach his eyes. And my heart shatters just a little bit more.
"Can we talk about what happened?" My voice shakes. The subject is a fragile eggshell that we've so far walked around in every way we can. But we can't clean up the mess that was made without touching it.
Ziko turns his face back up to the clouds. His heartbeat trills in his chest, an anxiety extending out to every part of his body that makes him quake at the thought. He presses his lips tightly together.
"Sometimes... it helps to process things out loud," I offer him his own advice.
"I'm soiled," he hisses through clenched teeth. "I am dirty."
"No, you are not." I tuck my knees underneath me, leaning forward as close as I dare. I want to wrap him up in my arms, to tuck him against me, and whisper my love for him in his ear until everything else fades away.
"As if I wasn't already unworthy of you. As if I wasn't already below you. Now, I am ruined. Publicly ruined."
The rasp in his voice is almost physically painful. Listening to him sends a tinge of desperation, sorrow, and outright agony like nails into my heart.
"No, yo--"
"Your kind words can't fix it, Briar." He cuts me off. He opens his palms and looks down at his rough hands. "I can't stop thinking that it's all my fault. I brought this all on myself. I trusted the wrong people. I let myself get close when I shouldn't have. Maybe I deserved it."
My breath catches in my chest. It hurts too much to breathe.
"I want to pretend like it didn't happen. But my mind won't stop replaying it. Every time I get near you... all I can think about is how Cordelia used me." His eyes stare blankly ahead, his body still. "How could you want someone who gave her pleasure? I'm just the leftovers of her little games."
"No you're not. I don't believe that you are." I so fiercely want to take his hands in mine. Instead I fist them in my lap. Wood bites into my ankles as all my weight falls onto my folded legs underneath me. "None of this was your fault. You didn't ask for her to do that. And you never deserved it. No one deserves that. I want you. I want you no matter what. No matter how broken or battered you feel. No matter who tries to bring you down, dismiss you, or break you. I. Want. You. As you are."
Lincoln scoffs and I know he doesn't believe me. But in due time... maybe he will.
"Perhaps," I sigh and move back to sit against the railing again to watch the stars while the crew shuffles around us. Someone calls out to someone else as I speak. "it's a good thing that we are here. Maybe for a time we need to be far away."
"Or maybe it's a really bad thing."
My thought quickly slips to Jase. To Lylix. To Zeve. What will become of them? Then I hug my knees to my chest again. Will Rowan have a funeral?
"Cordelia will get everything that is meant for her. We will get out of this Court... this realm... and even if I have to hand deliver justice myself, Cordelia will feel every ounce of