Page 51 of Ignition Rites
“I know,” he says immediately, his grip loosening without disappearing. “I know what I told you.”
“Then let go.”
He does, and the fact that he actually listens surprises me enough that I stay where I am.
Ash looks toward the open door before speaking again. “I’m asking you not to go in.”
“That’s different.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I’ve seen it.”
Rafe looks at him, but Ash doesn’t look back.
“I know what stays with you afterward.”
Behind him, Marcus’s mother starts pleading again, and my stomach turns.
“You can still go,” Ash says. “I won’t stop you, but I’m asking you not to.”
The words cost him. I can hear it.
I look toward the door, then at Rafe, who hasn’t moved.
“I need to know,” he says.
Ash finally looks at him.
Rafe holds his gaze, and whatever they understand in that moment belongs to years I wasn’t there for.
“Then go,” Ash says.
Rafe squeezes my hand once and releases it. I stay with Ash while Rafe steps toward the door, and for one second I can see him through the opening, shoulders squared, every trace of his usual grin gone, before he disappears inside.
Ash stands beside me without touching me while we listen. I hate him a little for being right, and I hate myself more for being relieved I didn’t look.
Behind us, the circuit keeps celebrating. Ahead of us, a mother cries for her son, and somewhere above all of it Alistair has already added my name to something.
Lorelei Vale.
My stomach turns at the memory of his answer.
Not yet.
Chapter fifteen
Epilogue
Cassian
Ifind Rafe still standing in the service corridor nearly twenty minutes after Lorelei chose to stay with Ash and he went through the door alone.
For a while, I don’t announce myself. His hands are braced against the wall, head lowered between his shoulders, eyes fixed on a doorway that has since gone dark and quiet. I have seen Rafe angry, reckless, bleeding, drunk, laughing hard enough to lose his breath, and I have never seen him look emptied out.
“You shouldn’t have gone in alone,” I say.
