The fact that he was deferring to me made me like him even more, and I didn’t need to like him any more than I already did. “Nothing bad has happened when I’ve felt it—well, I felt it before the whole zombie-horde thing, but I don’t know if the two are related or not. Nothing happened now, other than me being creeped out a little.”
“It could be related, though. Definitely something to keep an eye on.” He looked at me. “So...”
I waited. “So what?”
“Are you really okay?”
Whatever relaxation I’d been feeling belly flopped out a window. “Yeah, of course. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Well...” He sat forward, dropping his clasped hands between his knees, and I tensed to the point I thought my bones would break. “You’re out here, by yourself, sitting in a park.”
“Is there something wrong with that?” I crossed one leg over the other as I leaned back.
“No. But I know you’ve... A lot has happened, and you haven’t done it before.”
“And you haven’t left me alone in the middle of the day for an extended period of time before,” I pointed out. “You had stuff to do, and I had laundry combined with a singing, dancing Peanut.”
He coughed out a dry laugh. “That actually sounds like something to see.”
“It’s not. Trust me,” I assured him. “A lot has happened, but I’m okay.” That was the truth. For the most part. “And it was you who lost someone last night. Not me.”
“Just because I lost someone doesn’t zero out what you went through, Trin.” His voice was quiet, too quiet.
The whole time I’d worried about what I was going to tell Zayne to hide what I’d done, I hadn’t considered that he’d think my walk in the park had something to do with... Misha and everything. “I just wanted to get out. You know? I wanted to see the city during the daytime,” I lied. Well, it was a partial lie. I did want to see the city during the day. “And I thought today was a good day, since you were busy.”
“Hell.” Zayne dragged a hand through his hair. “I didn’t even think about that.”
“Think about what?”
“That you’d want to do that.” He looked over his shoulder at me. “Do something normal during the day instead of just eat and train.”
“Hey, those are two of my favorite pastimes,” I joked. “And training is important. More so than seeing the city.”
Zayne didn’t smile as he sat back, twisting toward me. “There’s nothing more important than seeing the city.”
I tilted my head as I raised my brows above the sunglasses. “The city is always going to be here, Zayne. It’s not that important.”
His gaze met mine. “But your vision won’t be.”
The next breath I took got stuck.
“I know you’re not going to lose your eyesight tomorrow and maybe not even next year, but why wait and take that chance?”
I was struck silent.
He glanced at the sky. “Since we’ll run out of daylight in a couple of hours, let’s grab something to eat and do an early patrol, so we don’t get back too late. Tomorrow I’ll show you all that I know. Make a whole day of it.”
A wild mess of emotions buffeted me from every side. “But...but we need to be out there as long as we can tonight. The Harbinger—”
“—isn’t as important as you.”
I gaped at him. “It’s extremely more important than me, and you, and my eyeballs and everything. It’s killing Wardens and demons. We need to find it and stop it before it moves on to killing humans.” I kept my voice low. “That’s the only thing that’s important.”
“Nah.” He shook his head. “It’s not. You, and you getting to see the city, is a Hell of a lot more important.”
My heart stuttered as the mess of emotion swirled even more. I stared at him, realizing that no one had ever put me before my duty. Yes, my life was valued and constantly placed above others, but no one ever put me before what I was designed to do, and that always made me feel like I wasn’t a person but a thing. A weapon. I knew that no one meant to do that, especially not Thierry, Matthew or my mom, but training had always come first. Knowing that I’d one day be called upon by my father had always been the future—the only future. But not to Zayne.