our identities secret at all costs if we were ever caught. We had to be extra careful because we would be used as ransom, blackmail, and punishment to Istvan.
In seconds, Aron had crushed the foundation out from under me.
He grabbed my face, his eyes watering. “I-I can’t believe this. Kovac—”
“Shut the fuck up, you idiot,” I hissed under my breath, standing up from the table, breaking our connection.
“What?” He stepped back in disbelief, his eyes going back and forth between mine. I could see he was trembling, fear tossing out years of conditioning. I knew he didn’t mean to pitch me under a train. Seeing me alive, a friend in a hostile place, took over his actions. But he still destroyed my safety net.
“What are you doing here?” The hostility around me grew, eyes drilling into me from all angles.
Most of all, I could feel his attention cutting me like glass from across the room. The king of Halalhaz. Nothing good came from Warwick Farkas’s attention on you.
He had left me alone for weeks, acting as if I didn’t exist. Now I could sense his eyes burning the back of my head, his eyes peeling at my skin.
“Caden’s totally lost it.”
“Jesus,” I growled, grabbing Aron’s shirt. “Stop talking.” I tugged him out of the mess hall. No one moved toward us, but I sensed that would soon change. Marching him around the corner, I slammed him against the wall. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“I know. I wasn’t thinking. I saw you…” He glanced away. “I can’t…” He broke off, a sob tearing up his throat. “I can’t die here. It was just a silly dare. I shouldn’t be here.”
“What do you mean?”
“Caden,” he cleared his throat…” since he saw you die, or I guess thought you did, he’s been on a bender. Lost it. Drunk and doing stupid shit. He’s on some sniper mission to kill every guard at the fae train depot across the river.”
The one where he watched me die.
“Caden has gone off the deep end. He dragged some of us with him in his pursuits. I was caught while trying to run away this last time.” Dragged, my ass. Aron, with his big ego, would be the first in line, claiming he could kill the most.
“I can’t believe this.” Aron gazed at me in wonder. “We all thought you were dead.”
“No, not yet.” Though with tonight looming over me and my real name painting a bright target on my back, it probably wouldn’t be long.
Another small sob hiccupped up his throat. “Fuck, Brex, help me. I don’t want to die. Not like this. This wasn’t supposed to happen. I shouldn’t be here.”
The arrogant boy in the training room was gone. Cocky in his environment, but at the first signs of true horror, he was blubbering like a baby.
“You think any of us want to be here?” I shoved him harder into the wall, whispering hoarsely. “You don’t think I want to go home? See Caden again? This isn’t a fucking holiday, but here we are. The faster you accept it, the better.”
He rubbed his hands roughly across his face.
“You are not gonna get any sugarcoating from me. This place is everything you imagine, if not worse. I’ve been beaten, tortured, starved, assaulted, threatened, demeaned, and locked in a hole for days. But you show weakness, and you’re dead, Horvát. And as much as I’ve thought you were an asshole back at HDF, you are still my comrade. My team member. We protect each other. So get it together.”
He nodded, his head dipped toward his chest, his hands shaking. I understood how overwhelming it was when you first arrived to find yourself in a place from which no human had ever returned. But it wasn’t in me to give up and accept the end so easily.
Tonight I might die. But I would go out fighting.
The bell declaring the breakfast hour over, time to get our asses to work, trilled through the air. Aron jerked his head at the loud sound, his throat bobbing, his eyes leaping to the doorway, watching figures start to emerge from the room.
“What’s going on?” he asked, reminding me of someone high on drugs: paranoid and jumpy.
Instead of answering him, I pushed him back into the wall again, demanding his attention back on me.
“You do not speak my real name again. Keep your mouth shut. Out me one more time, and I will kill you myself. You understand?”