: Chapter 25

Stay awake. Stay awake. Stay awake. My traitorous eyelids feel like lead. With each blink, I’m afraid they won’t open again. I’ve been slowly stumbling through the shadowy forest towards the creek for what feels like hours, blindly hoping I’m still headed in the right direction.

I’m tired. So very tired. I want nothing more than to slump against a tree and close my eyes for a minute. Just one blissful moment of peace—

No.

I pinch my arm, hard, causing my drooping eyelids to fly open.

If I fall asleep, I likely won’t wake back up.

I’m in bad shape, and I don’t need to be the daughter of a Healer to realize it. I’ve lost so much blood, making my head swim as I try to keep my footing. I shake my head, trying to ignore my fevered skin and shivering body. Just like I ignore that the strip of cloth I used as a bandage is already soaked with blood, staining the cotton scarlet.

I need to clean the wound and soon. If I don’t, I’m as good as dead.

What I need is water.

Every part of me burns. Burns with pain and thirst and hunger. If I can just get to some water, I can wash out the wound at the very least, cure my dehydration, and come to my senses long enough to create a concoction of herbs to clean the injury.

I hope.

Then I’d worry about eating, seeing that I can barely pull back my bowstring, and the rabbit I shot is long forgotten at the site where Ace ambushed me.

Leaving me defenseless and starving.

Get to the creek. Get to the creek. Get to the creek.

A faint, orange glow peeks through the trees ahead of me, blurry from my drooping eyes. I squint at it, unsure if I’m hallucinating or not. I tighten my sweaty grip on the bow, already knocked with an arrow, though it’s practically useless if I can’t pull back the damn string to fire it. I continue to creep closer to the fire flickering a few dozen yards away, completely unattended.

The light it casts reflects off something shimmering beside it.

The creek.

A relieved, breathy laugh escapes me as I cautiously continue forward. I’m being reckless, of course, but I don’t particularly care in this state. Someone started this fire, and I may be walking straight towards them. But I’ll die if I don’t get to that water, though I might be killed if I do.

Both options will likely lead to my imminent death. Great.

I’m only a few feet away from the fire now, my eyes searching the shadows for any sign of the human who lit it.

Get to the water. Get to the—

“You just can’t seem to stay away from me, can you, Gray?”

I halt, heart hammering.

I can hear the amusement in his voice, practically picture the dimples peeking out on either side of his smirk. I take a deep breath, mentally preparing myself for the excruciating pain I’m about to endure.

Whipping around, I raise my bow and pull the string taut. I swallow my cry of pain as I feel my wound tearing, stretching with the movement.

I can’t let him see I’m injured. Put on a show. Get to the water.

The tip of my arrow is pointed at his heart, and I just make out his exposed chest in the flickering light. It looks as though I’m not the first opponent he’s encountered, nor am I the first one to aim something at his heart. He’s wrapped a strip of cloth under his arm and around a wound just above his swirling tattoo.

My eyes flick back to his, willing the agony from my features. Willing him to see me as a threat. His gaze sweeps over me with an expression I can’t decipher, but I’m not in the mood or headspace to puzzle him out.

“Leave or I shoot.” My arm is beginning to tremble with the effort and pain of keeping the bow trained on him.

He only chuckles and takes a step towards me. “Good to see you too, Gray.”

“You think I’m kidding. How cute.” I bite out the words, my chest heaving.

“What, that’s it? You’re just going to shoot me?” His lips twitch. “Where’s the fun in that?”

“Oh, it’ll be fun for me, I assure you.” My voice is shaky. I’m shaky.

Kai takes another step towards me, cocking his head to the side. His hands are casually in his pockets as he looks me over again. “I’m confused. You do realize that the point of this Trial is to take my band, correct?” His smirk grows. “Or at least try.”

“Well, I’m letting you off easy by allowing you to leave.” The words don’t sound threatening in the slightest. I’m swaying on my feet now, head spinning.

I can’t do this for much longer.

I can feel the hot blood running down my stomach from my torn wound, and black dots are swimming in front of my eyes, threatening to swallow me whole.

I’m going to pass out. What if I don’t wake up? What if die because I wasn’t strong enough? Because I’m a weak Ordinary—

“Gray…?”

Between my drooping eyelids, I can see Kai take a hesitant step towards me, all amusement wiped from his face. And I must truly be hallucinating because I think I see worry flickering in his gaze.

“Gray, what happened?” He’s stepping slowly towards me, but I can’t keep my hold on the bow any longer. For a reason I can’t explain, I aim at the ground instead of him, releasing my grip on the string and letting the arrow fly into the dirt at his feet before the bow slips from my sweaty hand.

I can barely hear Kai’s shout through the ringing in my ears. “Gray!”

I don’t remember hitting the ground.

My face connects with the packed earth, but I barely feel it. My whole body is on fire, hardly breathing as I burn from the inside out.

“Paedyn! Hey, Pae, look at me.”

Rough hands are gripping the sides of my face, forcing my eyes to flutter open. They feel cold against my fevered skin, now slick with sweat, and concern is written all over the beautiful face hovering over me. I’ve never seen him so worried, so full of emotion. His cool mask has cracked, shattered, splintered into a million pieces as he lifts my head off the ground, pulling me towards him to search my face with wide, gray eyes.

And then he’s gone. Darkness.

“Hey, hey, hey.” Calloused hands are pushing the damp hair off my forehead while words are muttered close to my face. “Pae, stay with me.” His voice is stern despite the panic lacing each word.

Slowly, I force my eyes to crack open while I croak out quiet words through cracked lips, words that suddenly seem so important. “You’ve never called me that before.”

I’ve only ever heard him say my real name once when he had me pinned against an alley wall while he tested the word out for the first time. But I haven’t heard my name slip past his lips since. Haven’t heard the way the two syllables sound rolling of his tongue.

And I’ve certainly never heard him call me Pae.

I’m smiling up at him now, grinning like an idiot. I can’t stop. Delusional. I’m completely and undeniably delusional.

But in this moment, I don’t want to die—if only so I could hear him say my name one more time.

Delirious. I’m so very delirious.

He’s suddenly still. His eyes roam over my face, lips slightly parted as he takes me in. Then he blinks. Once. Twice. His dark lashes flutter, gray eyes flicking between mine as he says, “Remind me to make you smile like that again, when you aren’t dying, and I have all the time in the world to memorize it.”

Now it’s my turn to blink at him. Once. Twice.

That comment was all it took to wake me up because now my eyes don’t seem to want to stray from his. I must have heard him wrong. I’m so delirious that my mind is playing tricks on me, playing with my emotions, my feelings.

But I’m certainly not imagining the hands that are running up my body. I nearly choke on my ragged breath when his fingers brush my ankles, slowly running up each of my legs.

He’s trying to find the wound. I open my mouth to tell him where it is, but my head is spinning and I’m on the verge of passing out from the pain. I breathe heavily, trying to calm my pounding head and heart.

His fingers pass over my legs, gently poking and prodding as he searches for the wound. Once he’s satisfied that my legs are functioning just fine, his hands slide up to my hips, lifting me slightly off the ground to run a hand over my lower back. His brows are knit in concentration as his fingers feel over my lower stomach, his movements swift, steady, sure. This isn’t the first time he’s done this.

His hands slide up my abdomen, around my waist—

Pain like I’ve never experienced before erupts from the wound when his fingers dance over it, followed by a strangled sob tearing from my throat. The pain is so blinding that I think I’m about to blackout. And I find myself wanting too, if only so I don’t have to feel like this anymore.

I watch through blurry vision as he lifts the hem of the tattered shirt to reveal the silky one beneath soaked with blood. He sighs through his nose before lifting the hem of the tank, exposing my fevered skin to the cool night. There’s a flash of something small and sharp in his hands as he begins to carefully cut the bloodied cloth from around my middle.

His jaw tightens at the sight of the jagged wound stretching below my ribcage, a muscle ticking in his cheek. His eyes, full of an emotion I’ve never seen from him before, trace the bloody mess on my stomach.

And then my own eyes slam shut, sealing the image of him out. Leaving him in the world that is beginning to fade.

“Paedyn.” Kai’s voice is so far away, so distant from where I’m slipping into oblivion. “Paedyn, open your eyes.” It’s an order, strong and stern. And I ignore it. How very typical of me. Even in death my body refuses to listen to the commands of the future Enforcer. “Open your eyes, dammit!”

Tired. I’m so very tired.

Far, far away, I hear a male voice muttering panicked words.

“If you die, I’m going to kill you.”