Page 111 of Cruel Kiss

"Don't let them hate me," he says, quiet. The same words. From the sidewalk outside the camp, three weeks ago, in the meekest voice I ever heard from him.Don't let them hate me.I gave him the not-answer then. I let it sit between us and he took it and saidthat's fair.

A click. The message ends.

The automated voice comes on, cold and pleasant. "To delete this message, press seven. To save it?—"

I hang up before I have to make a choice.

Bye, Daddy,Isabella said this afternoon, and dropped a butterfly onto a box. He gets to turn into something better. She was right. She's always right, my girl. She might be smarter than the rest of us put together.

I don't know how long I sit there. Long enough for the phone to go dark in my hand. The crying slows and then stops, leaving me tired but cleansed on the other side of it.

I'm still holding the phone when I hear him coming down the stairs.

But it's not the sneaky footsteps I'm used to. He's running, thudding, not worried at all about being quiet because?—

Fuck, is someone in here? Is Lev? Another killer? The fake feds? The real ones?

I'm half up off the stool with my hand reaching for a weapon that isn't there when Ronan comes around the corner into the kitchen and locks eyes with me.

"Cali." He grabs the doorframe. "Navi's awake."

I drop back down hard.

"He's awake," he growls, torn between delight and disbelief. "Grigor just called. He opened his eyes an hour ago, he's talking, the doctors say he's actually talking, he asked for water, and then—" A hysterical laugh tears out of him. "The first full sentence out of him, after two bullets and three surgeries and a week of the whole family losing our minds, was, and I'm quoting the man exactly, 'So did our fearless leader finally learn to duck, or does he still catch bullets with his chest like an idiot?’”

And there it is. The stubborn man, the impossible man, the man who took two bullets meant for Ronan and used his last breath before surgery to swear it wasn't him. Awake. Talking. Making jokes.

I'm across the kitchen before I know I've moved. I hit Ronan hard enough to knock the breath out of him. He catches me, folds down over me, and we hold onto each other in the dark by the counter full of casseroles nobody's going to eat.

I feel him shaking, this enormous man, shaking and laughing and crying all at once.

"He's awake," he says into my hair. "I can't believe it."

"And he's already insufferable. That's how you know it's really him." I pull back to look at him. "Get your keys, Counselor. Let's go tell the most stubborn man in New York that yes, you finally learned to duck. He's going to be so disappointed he doesn't get to gloat forever."

32

RONAN

Grigor is standing by the ICU doors when we come off the elevator. He straightens up when he sees me, and for the first time in a week, the lines in his face loosen.

"They moved him out of critical about midnight," he reports. "He's still weak. But he's… Well, he's Navi. You'll see."

I go in alone. Cali stays in the hall with Grigor. She squeezes my hand once before she lets it go, and I hold onto the feeling of it all the way through the door.

My cousin looks terrible. There's no other word for it. He's gray in the face, tubes in his arm, a clip on his finger, a machine behind him counting his heartbeats out loud like it doesn't trust him to keep doing it on his own. I don't trust him to do it, either.

But fucking hell, his eyes are open.Open.

And when he sees me, that idiot grin spreads across his cracked lips.

"There he is," Navi rasps. "The man who dodges nothing."

I sit down in the plastic chair beside his bed. I don't trust my voice for a second.

"I doubted you," I finally say. "You told me it wasn't you and I didn't believe you, and then you?—"

"Yeah, yeah." He waves the hand that isn't taped to a board. "You're an idiot. We covered that. Water under the bridge. Or blood under the SUV, whichever."