Spellhacke- M. K. England Page 0,43

change right at the end there, but I have no idea what it was or where to go about looking for it. Besides, I think Ania is right here. I hate that it happened, but what will knowing change? It still will have happened. Those people will still be ill. Or dead.”

I blink, stunned. I want to protest, to say something in reply, but I can’t force my brain to comprehend. I know Remi can’t mean that the way it sounds. They must be hurting, hurting so bad, thinking of all the newly ill. So how can they not want to figure this out? I look to Jaesin to back me up, but he only nods, leaning forward to brace his forehead on his folded hands.

“I think what we really need to do here is take whatever money we can pull from our accounts and get out of town,” he says. When he lifts his head, his eyes are shiny with tears, but hard. “We head to Jattapore a few days early, that’s all. Ania, you come with us for a week, just to lay low and let this pass. And we forget this ever happened.”

My vision whites out with a surge of anger.

“No. NO!” I shout, momentarily forgetting about Ania’s parents. “We have to figure out what we did wrong. What if it happens again? Or what if it wasn’t our fault and there’s something wrong with the system down there, just waiting to set off another spellplague?”

Ania’s expression is pained, but she shakes her head. “I’m with Jaesin here,” she begins. “They’ll be investigating for a long time. If there’s something wrong, they’ll find it. We need to—”

“You’re a bunch of fucking cowards!” I spit, my throat raw and tight. My hands clench into fists, the knuckles going white. “Hundreds of people dead or dying, they said, and you just wanna skip town?”

They’re so fixated on leaving, so constantly ready to just abandon Kyrkarta and leave everything behind. We grew up here, Davon is here, our parents died and are buried here, and they can just walk away? Just ditch our home city to fend for itself in the wake of a disaster of our own making? How can they find it so easy to leave this place?

To leave me?

They should know. I shouldn’t have to ask them to stay and deal with this, they should know.

We were supposed to have more time.

“I won’t leave,” I say, quieter, low and furious. “I won’t run away from this.”

Jaesin, the perpetually patient one, finally snaps, that fury I glimpsed on the bridge boiling over.

“Why not, Diz? Isn’t avoidance your default way to deal with everything? You never wanted to leave with us anyway. You cared more about yourself and this city than about our ten years of friendship. You decided to take that job with Davon instead of going with us, but you’re too much of a coward to just say it. Don’t think I didn’t notice that slipup yesterday. So what’s the difference? You don’t want to join us? Fine. Stay here and rot in everything you refuse to get over, become an MMC zombie and look over your shoulder every single day, wondering if anyone’s going to figure you out. Go out in the middle of the night and hang out with Davon and dance with random girls, even though there are people right here who care about you, who are offering you another option.”

He pauses, then shakes his head. “I’ve always known where we stood with you. I guess I just thought you might change your mind before we actually all fell apart.”

I laugh, harsh and unkind.

“Well, you should really know better by now, shouldn’t you,” I say. Joke’s on him. I fell apart years ago.

“Yeah,” he says, quieter. “Yeah, I guess I should.”

He takes a long breath in, then blows it out slowly.

“Well, we’re leaving tomorrow. With or without you. Right?” he asks. The others nod their assent, tears running down their cheeks, Remi’s eyes pleading.

I can’t look at them. I can’t look at any of them. My blood boils hot under my skin.

“Fine,” I say. “Fine.”

My chest tightens, the vise grip around my heart squeezing until it crumbles away to ashes.

“Goodbye, I guess.”

It comes out rough, the last syllable barely audible, because a little dignity is apparently too much to ask for.

A notification pops up on my lenses as I snatch my boots up off the rack and tug them roughly onto my feet. Davon.

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