could make me one minute and how special he could make me feel the next. But I especially hated myself for allowing him to have so much pull over my mood.
I needed some distance, but how the hell was I supposed to find any in this magical jail cell?
Besides boarding the train alone . . .
I stared at the door and contemplated leaving before him. Fear won out. I might’ve been a little brave but most definitely not brave enough to face this world alone. That was the reason I waited for him once I’d let myself out of the bathroom and he’d gone inside.
The only reason.
27
The Explosion
When we set off toward the train, the mist belted the calimbors, masking their crowns.
Remo climbed onto the hovering platform with the ease of a gymnast. He offered me his hand, but I didn’t take it, pretending not to have seen it. I was done holding his hand. With the grace of a steel rod, I hoisted myself up and over.
While Remo grazed the modern touchscreen, I settled on the curved bench and stared out the window until the outside world disappeared behind opaque barriers. And then I curled my palms around the lip of my seat and readied myself for the molar-shattering voyage. I wondered if we actually traveled or if the train was static and the world around us reorganized itself. If it was the latter, then the juddering was unnecessarily cruel.
Then again, this was prison, not some spa with coconuts fitted with striped straws and fuzzy rainbow loungers.
Remo turned around, pressing his palms into the ceiling to keep himself steady. I felt his eyes on me but still refused to look at him. He’d kissed me, confessed he’d liked me for years, and then he went and ruined everything by bringing up his sense of duty to the Cauldron. Most importantly, though, why was I so offended? It wasn’t as though I’d harbored feelings for Gregor’s grandson. I probably cared because I was drained, physically and mentally, and exhaustion made me slightly grouchy.
I thought about our kiss, wishing I hadn’t felt anything. It would’ve made it all so much simpler. Feelings couldn’t get hurt when none were involved. The train finally stopped shaking, but my skull didn’t. I swiped my Infinity to release medication into my bloodstream when I remembered the damn thing didn’t work in this damn world.
“Are you okay?” Remo asked as the windows and door retracted.
I really wished he could go back to being an ass, because that made not liking him way simpler. “Just my head, but it’ll pass.”
I got up. Because the compartment was small and he wasn’t, my wedged-in breasts made contact with his firm chest. I chided my skin for tingling. It needed to stop doing that.
“I’d rather a punch than your silence, Amara.”
I stared at his jostling Adam’s apple, and not because I was contemplating punching it—his neck was bruised enough—but because it sat in my direct line of sight and Adam’s apples didn’t stare back in the hopes of excavating your soul.
“Do you think any of this is easy on me? I kiss you, I confess stuff to you that I assumed I’d take to my flowerbed grave, and then you give me the cold shoulder, because I reminded you that we’re bound by the Cauldron—”
I whipped my gaze up to his. “You reminded me? Because you think I forgot?” I tried to step back but the backs of my knees hit the bench. “I’m not mad because of that.”
His eyebrows went up. “Then why are you mad?”
“Because, Remo, I’m confused. You’re confusing. Do you like me or not? Am I an obligation or a choice?”
“You were never a choice until the Cauldron bound us.”
“The Cauldron shouldn’t have changed anything.”
“But it did. Just like this place did. Just like watching you die did.” He tossed his hands in the air, disrupting the flyaways around my face, which had fallen out of my braid during the night. “Tell me something . . . did you ever consider making out with me before we were tossed together in the Scourge?”
My cheeks brightened. “No, but that’s because you were hateful.”
“And yet you kissed me back, Amara, so admit this place changed you, too.”
I notched my chin a tad higher. “This place changed how I saw you but not what I want. And what I want is a real relationship, not an ordained one, and certainly not one with an expiration date because the other