Once again, I’ve royally screwed everything up. I need to let her go, but instead I find myself touching her face with a stupid paw, cursing the costume for getting in the way of feeling her soft skin, cursing her green paint for hiding her face from me.
With a furry thumb I wipe the paint from above her lip and she yanks back.
“What are you doing?”
“I . . .” There it is. The perfectly round brown dot, at once innocent and sexy. “I wanted to see your freckle.”
The inside of my costume is a sauna at this point. I want more than anything to kiss her. One last taste.
Don’t do it, you evil bastard. Don’t make it harder on her. Just push her away.
“What do you want from me, Kai?” she whispers.
Isn’t it obvious? I want everything. Why can’t I control these feelings? And why should I have to? It all fills me with a raging fury of injustice. I grip her tighter.
“For starters?” I growl. “I want to introduce myself to every freckle on your body.”
I feel her tremble in my hands, sending my body to its boiling point in the ape suit.
“So, just something physical, then? That’s all you want?”
I hate myself for my inability to let her go. If I can’t push her away, maybe I can force her to push me.
“Tell me you hate me.” It would be so much easier if she did.
“But I don’t hate you. I couldn’t.”
Her breath smells like bubble gum. Everything about her is too sweet for me.
“You could,” I assure her, pulling her tighter. “And you should.”
She’s fighting tears when she says, “I’m letting you go, but only because I have to. I need to move on with my life, but I’ll never hate you.”
Yes. Let me go. Move on. Then maybe I can do the same.
I force myself to open my hands and let her go. She stumbles back, shooting me one last heartbreaking, wide-eyed stare. And then just like at the airport, she turns from me and walks abruptly away, her matted blond hair falling against her shoulders. And just like before, she doesn’t turn back.
I roughly yank the gorilla head over my face. It smells as sour as I feel.
Damn the Maker and the Deceiver. Damn them all.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Anna’s Test
“I really miss your hair in my face
And the way your innocence tastes.”
—“Better Than Me” by Hinder
We’ve been good. We’ve stayed away from each other since Halloween—two months exactly. But still, we are not safe. Always, threats lurk, and this one snuck up.
All the fear I’ve known since meeting Anna seven months ago has led to this night. She is under suspicion. I could have helped her avoid this fate. I could have put aside my own selfishness and properly trained her during our road trip. But I didn’t. Instead, I’ve played games, pushing her away and reeling her back in for the past seven months. And now she’s forced to go against her personal morals to save her life.
Honestly, I don’t know if she can pull it off. The other Neph and I have given her as much information and advice as we possibly can. We’ll be at her side tonight, each of us working, but she has to do her part on her own. I’m more nervous for her than I’ve ever been for myself.
“You all right there, babe?” Marna asks, leaning up from the backseat. My knuckles are white, and I force myself to loosen my grip on the wheel.
“Yeah,” I say. “Fine.”
Blake claps my shoulder from the passenger seat. “We got this, brah.”
“Just don’t do anything stupid,” Ginger mutters at me from the back, where she’s applying another coat of eye shadow. “Like that bloody awful haircut.”
I ignore her, running my hand over the buzz cut I gave myself while wasted on eggnog.
“I like it,” Marna says. “It’s cute. He looks a bit like a criminal.”
Blake turns in his seat. “Criminals are cute? Dude, whatev. Girls are weird.” At this, Marna giggles.
I catch Kopano’s eye in the rearview mirror. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time, hanging with the lot of us here in Atlanta for holiday break when Father and the other U.S. Dukes met at my house and called us all together, suggesting we work together as a group this New Year’s Eve for maximum damage to the humans. We didn’t know at the time Anna was under suspicion. Thankfully Belial tipped her off. She’ll most likely be tailed