of like me,” he said softly. “Running from things you don’t understand and can’t control. Running from bad people who wanted to do things to you that you didn’t agree with. You’ve just been doing it longer.”
I froze, knowing he was right. I never really considered his situation with mine, not like that.
“I found a way to stop running,” I finally corrected. “But, yeah, you hit the nail on the head. It’s been a long time since I’ve talked about most of that, and I didn’t even get into everything.”
“I have a feeling we’d be here all night if you did,” he said, a dark chuckle filling the room. He stopped, looking guilty. “Sorry.”
“It’s fine.”
“Mind if I ask one more thing?”
I shrugged, not really caring anymore. We’d lived together for four months and never really talked. It honestly felt good to tell him about me, to show him more of myself. I wanted him to understand me. I probably wanted more than that.
“Where does Nakul fit into all of this?”
“Oh.” I snorted, looking toward the bedroom I had locked my uncle in. “We thought he was dead for a long time. From my understanding, Adhar and others had gone to his home, found the bodies of my aunt and cousin, but not him. They’d assumed he was captured and killed. Wouldn’t be the first time. They actually thought that happened to me until they caught wind of my movements. It wasn’t until I was an Executioner and met Cassius that I heard about Nakul again. I didn’t know it was him at first, but Cassius was working on the case and in the area. I got nosy. At the time, we hated each other. He was so prim and proper, and I was…just not either of those things.” I rubbed my hands together. “I looked over the case while he was bitching about something, and it stuck out to me. Everything felt familiar as if I’d seen it or heard about it before. The bodies were placed and positioned, and the families were similar. I asked to go into one of the crime scenes, and I could taste one of my own kind in the air, and I knew who it was. Cassius kept me on to help. We chased Nakul for a while and finally caught him. He was…batshit insane. He’d completely lost his mind. He was so driven by grief and anguish, he’d lashed out in the most painful way he could.”
We sat in silence for a long time. I stared at my closed windows, wondering if I would be able to watch the sunrise or if it was too dangerous. It took my mind off the thoughts of the past creeping up in the dark.
“I’m really sorry for always giving you a hard time,” Raphael said quietly, breaking the silence. “I know when we met, I was an asshole. You killed people, and that’s wrong, and I was so single-minded about it. Do I agree with it? No, but…”
“You understand,” I finished for him. “That’s all we can hope for, right? Understanding each other.”
“Yeah, but it’s not just—”
He jumped and stopped when my phone started ringing. I quickly grabbed it, this time checking to see who it might be.
“What’s going on, Paden?”
“Look out your window,” he ordered.
“No…” I trailed off. “I don’t think I will. Why don’t you just tell me?”
“There’s a storm brewing over the city.”
That doesn’t sound good—only one explanation for that.
“There was no rain in the weather report this morning. None for another week, actually,” I said nonchalantly. “This is good. City needs rain.”
“Kaliya.” Paden didn’t sound amused.
“Sorry, but I’m not confirming anything over the phone, and you know it,” I replied. “I’ll give you an update later. Thanks for the call.”
I hung up on him before he could try to dig for more information. I knew what he wanted. He wanted confirmation, and I had no intention of giving that to him for him to sell to whoever he could before dawn broke. I turned to Raphael and sighed.
“Levi is in the city.”
I stood and walked to one of my sealed windows, using my phone to open it. When Raphael walked up beside me, I wondered what he was thinking, seeing the storm brewing over the city. It looked natural, but there was nothing natural about it. Lightning flashed, and the crash of thunder came soon after.
“What are we going to do?” he asked softly.
“We’re going to go out there and find him