The Key to Fear - Kristin Cast Page 0,70

to find out what the Key did to her so they can stop it from happening again.”

Click.

Elodie sucked in a breath. “That’s why no one would tell me where Aubrey was transferred, and why Holly said I didn’t have access to her file.”

Aiden’s brow lifted with a nod. “Elodie, I’ll understand if you still feel like you have to turn me into the Council.” His soft tone was almost swallowed by the steady clank of the MAX as it lumbered down the street.

“I could never do that.” She would never do that, sentence someone to death. Not for what she’d seen. Eos hadn’t hurt anyone. And what Aiden said made too much sense. Aubrey’s was the one case that didn’t fit. That felt wrong. Elodie needed answers.

Aiden’s jacket wheezed as he shifted. “Then let me show you what you’re protecting.”

With a shake of her head, Elodie jerked back. “I’m not protecting anything.”

He shrugged. “By not telling, you’re protecting me.”

The air thickened around her. Doing nothing was never as simple as it seemed. The absence of an action, a decision, was a choice in itself. Rhett had taught her that.

She wished she had her jacket to hide in. “I don’t want to do anything scary.”

Aiden chuckled, a glorious fizzy pop against the stiffness of the night air. “You’re braver than you think.”

It was the second time he’d said that, and it still pressed against Elodie with the weight of a lie.

He brushed his hand through the air, motioning for her to follow. “It won’t be scary. Promise.”

Elodie hesitated. She wanted to follow. Desperately wanted …

But her mother’s sentiment burned within her.

Aiden disappeared into the black curtain of shadows stretching between the trees, the light squish of his boots against the moist grass the only sign of him.

Elodie chewed the inside of her cheek, listening to him go. She was doing it again. Making a life-altering choice by simply doing nothing.

Aiden’s footsteps faded, swallowed whole by the dark.

She took a deep breath.

Life continued, dragging her around in its wake, shredding her like an unwanted doll. Elodie was tired of life happening to her.

“Aiden!” She charged forward, her eyes adjusting as she plunged into the darkness.

Elodie had followed. Aiden had been positive that she wouldn’t. That he’d feel the last bits of their relationship, however it was categorized and shelved within each of them, evaporate with the evening mist as the space between them grew.

But she was following.

Aiden had thought he’d come to say goodbye to the river, the murky artery that pulsed through the city, bisecting east from west. He thought he’d sit on a cool fountain bench for one last time and toss a whispered I’m sorry into the water. For what? He wasn’t sure. But remorse seeped into the hollow of his bones. Maybe it was because he’d dragged Elodie into a world she didn’t want to or have to exist in. Aiden knew all too well that stepping into the light of Eos would bleach out the shadows from the rest of the world. Was Elodie ready to leave the darkness?

Had he given her a choice?

They’d been walking for nearly ten minutes when Elodie cleared the silence. “Where are we going?”

Aiden’s boots scraped against the pavement as they crossed another street on their trek away from the river. It was a simple enough question, a fair enough question, but the answer was too big for mere words.

Each breath stuffed him full of anticipation. “You just have to see it.”

At the next intersection they waited for the MAX to clank past.

“I don’t like surprises.” The crisp white light of the streetlamp glimmered in Elodie’s dark eyes and illuminated the smirk pinning the corners of her lips.

Man, she was beautiful. What was it that they said? Beauty is in the eye of the beholder?

But that was only partially correct. There was a silently agreed-upon standard. There had been forever. There would be until the end of time. Participation wasn’t mandatory, but categorization happened nonetheless.

Elodie was striking, noticeable. But her true beauty surfaced as her layers of protection flaked away and she unfurled, bloomed into herself.

Aiden hopped off the curb and continued their nighttime adventure to the disregarded industrial outskirts of Westfall. “You don’t like surprises?” Aiden scratched his stubbled cheek. “You sure about that?”

The corners of her eyes creased as her smirk deepened and her shoulders hiked to her ears.

Elodie pinned her arms to her sides, her cheerfulness draining with the motion. “I’m not sure about anything right now.” Honesty thickened