Page 65 of The Fake Divination Offense
He’s holding my hand—no,clingingto me, his other hand wrapped around my arm, all his fingers clawed in deep. And when I try again to walk us away, he refuses to budge, stone-stiff and pale, his gaze unfocused on the middle space where Aaron’s phone was.
“Alexo?” I tap his chin, trying to get him to look at me.
He doesn’t even blink, eyes bloodshot and frozen, his breathing going jackrabbit fast. That look of terror on his face hits me with a furor, making me want to spur to some kind of action, but I’m as stuck as he is.
Aaron and the other tanks peel away to give us privacy and I barely have the wherewithal to nod my appreciation before I’m bending to eye level with Alexo.
“Hey.” I cup his face. “Alexo? Ale—Belle. Belle, sweetheart, can you—”
His eyes flash to mine.
And he breaks.
Tears drip down his face, his whole body shuddering as fear releases him, and he shakes his head, shakes it and shakes it, whispering, “No, Orok, no—”
“It’s all right.” I tuck him into my side. “I’ll get you to your room, okay?”
He clings to me. “Can we go to yours?”
I hesitate. “Yeah?”
“Roommate in mine,” he mumbles, his voice choked.
I’ve never been more grateful that I always pay the difference to get my own room when the team travels. “My room. Yeah. Let’s go.”
Rather than braving the watchful eyes around the main elevators, where a few people now look from their phones to me with more of Aaron’s sympathy, I swing us around and back into the utility hall, then up through the private elevators there, the ones the team took when we first checked in.
The guest floors are quiet; most people are down at the gala or out for the night as I whisk Alexo into my suite. The door lock beeps behind us and I hit a light to illuminate the front room’s table, chairs, and couch. A door on the left goes into the bedroom, and beyond that is a massive bathroom.
Alexo steps numbly into the main room, his arms around himself, shivering enough that I punch up the heat on the wall unit.
“Do you want to talk about it?” I ask. That’s a stupid question; I think weneedto talk about it.
Why did that news report scare him so much? Is it because he’s so connected to it now, being a follower of Urzoth?
My phone vibrates in my pocket. Honestly, I’m shocked it’s taken anyone this long, and when I pull it out, I see a few missed texts from my mom, no doubt havingvery strong feelingsabout the Galaxrien cultists stooping to abduct an Urzoth follower—fuck, that hasn’t sunk in yet—as well as a missed call from Roesia Sombercrown’s office.
My phone vibrates again, another call from the team manager.
I let it go to voicemail and toss it on the couch.
“They were going to kill that man,” Alexo says suddenly. It’s brittle, like he’s testing the validity in the words, hoping they’ll be wrong.
“They didn’t. An adventure party saved him.”
“But they would have killed him.” He finally looks up at me, caved in on himself, so damn small and lost it makes my heart crack. “They’ve progressed to full human sacrifice now.”
“Is being associated with Urzoth worrying you?” I step toward him and touch his elbows where he’s got his arms folded.
He shrugs.
I tilt his face up to me, needing him to see, to know a little bit of what I’m always trying to suppress. The steam rising inside me, the unstoppable impetus of obsession I fight tooth and nail to keep at bay every damn second.
“I won’t let anything happen to you,” I promise him. My skin aches with the force of everything I want to say, all the promises and oaths I want to lay at his feet. “And if being associated with Urzoth is making you afraid, we’ll undo it. I’ll get you out. Say the word, say anything, and it’s yours.”
Alexo’s eyes shift through mine, his posture wilting. “You really mean that.”
“I do. Anything.”
