Page 52 of Ignition Rites
He startles, then turns his head toward me without taking his hands from the wall.
“I didn’t start out alone.” His voice sounds wrong, flat in places it usually bends. “She came as far as the corridor because I did. Ash asked her not to go farther, and she stayed.”
There is emphasis on asked, and I hear it.
“So he listened.”
“Yeah.” Rafe finally pushes away from the wall. “Apparently he can learn.”
Under any other circumstances there would be a smile attached to that, but tonight there isn’t.
“You still went in.”
“I wanted to see the actual thing.” His eyes return to the doorway. “Not the part everybody’s allowed to watch.”
“And now you have.”
His jaw tightens. I don’t ask him to describe it, because I already know, and Rafe looks at me then, not casually.
“You know.”
It isn’t a question.
“Yes.”
His expression changes, the emptiness giving way to something sharper. “How?”
I could lie. There are several lies available to me. Instead I say, “Because I’ve seen what comes after.”
Rafe stares at me. “When?”
“Years ago.”
“How old were you?”
“Too young for it to have taught me what it should have.”
His mouth opens, then closes, and I can see that answer rearranging me for him. Good. It should.
“You run this shit,” he says.
“The opener.”
“The rankings.”
“Parts of them.”
“And you knew where they were taking Marcus.”
“Yes.”
The word sits between us. Rafe looks toward the dark doorway again.
“You knew, and you still let me walk in there.”
“You said you needed to know.”
“That’s not an answer.”
