Page 98 of Ember Rising

“Look, I get what you’re trying to do, but I just want to leave. I’m still a prisoner, just in a nicer cage.”

She draws her brows together. “I wanted you to know that even though you’re on a coed floor, no one can access your room but you when the door is locked.”

I drop the subject and open the door, finding a plain white room with a lofted bunk bed, a wood desk, and a chair. A folded white towel and a stack of clothes are sitting on the bottom bed.

“If you need anything, ask whoever’s at the front desk downstairs to call me. Check in there when you’re showered and settled in and they’ll set you up with Diego.”

I don’t respond, and she leaves. Once I’m alone in the room, I walk over to the small window and look out.

There are a few people walking on the quad, most in the same military fatigues Evander wears. I wonder if he’s on this campus somewhere. I’m not sure if I’d prefer to see him one more time and tell him what I think of him, or be done with him forever.

I’m out of the cage, but the weight of my circumstances feels even heavier now. I keep thinking about the Deadmen throwing acid on people. I don’t think Sela was just trying to tug at my heartstrings; Justin is cruel enough to do that.

If he ever finds me, that’s the kind of thing he’d do to me. I’m ashamed for thinking of protecting myself, and letting the people they hurt every day stay faceless and abstract in my mind.

My hair looks better than it has in a long time when I walk out of the bathroom half an hour later. I’m no ILF fan, but they have conditioner. There was no timer on the shower, so I enjoyed the steam and soap for a while.

“Amira.”

Evander pushes off the wall he was leaning against, waiting for me. I gawk at him for a full second, too surprised to speak.

His face is leaner than it was when I last saw him, but his long, muscled limbs are the same. His shoulders are still roughly the width of a doorframe. And he’s freshly shaven, his hair cropped short.

Which, I guess, makes him a clean-cut son of a bitch, but that’s about it. My heart must be racing because I’m so angry with him.

“What could you possibly want?” I demand, tossing my wet bath towel over my shoulder.

“We need to talk.”

I shake my head, fury slicing through me. There’s so much I want to say to him, I wouldn’t even know where to begin.

“Don’t bother. Your mission was to get me here and into a cage. Well done. Time for the next mission.”

I have to look away from the emotions swimming in his eyes.

“I wasn’t going to bring you here. I was routing us north of the hub and I planned to tell you it wasn’t on the map and take you somewhere safe. But then you fell in the ravine, and ... I thought we’d both die without medical attention, and there was nowhere else to go. I ripped my stitches open getting you out of the ravine.”

That sparks something in me. Lots of somethings. It’s so unfair that this man who would climb down a ravine and rip his gunshot wound back open to save me is also a manipulative asshole. I take a step closer to him, scowling.

“So your excuse for lying to me this whole time is that you were planning to tell a new lie, but then you had to stick with the original lie? Go fuck yourself.”

A muscle in his jaw tics as he looks down at me. I can’t help seeing the broken, closed-off man who tried to save me from the Fire Eaters. The man whose pride is so fierce he walked until his feet were bloody and he was stumbling from exhaustion rather than admit he couldn’t keep up with someone whose aromium made them stronger and faster.

“I was planning to tell you. Once I knew we were safe.”

“How convenient.” I’ve had nothing but time in that cage to think about everything he did, and I’ve imagined this conversation at least a hundred times. “You knew, Evander. You fucking knew about Donovan when you were asking me about him like you didn’t.”

His shoulders drop with guilt. “Yeah, I knew. But you also lied by omission, Alice. How is it fair to demonize me and excuse yourself?”

“Oh.” I have to take a moment, because I can’t believe he just said that.

“How did I affect your life by not telling you my entire history? Your lie put my life in danger, and it still is in danger, by the way. What did I do to you?”

He rubs his forehead, looks at the ceiling, and then meets my eyes again. I spin in the opposite direction, walking away from him.

Following, he comes up beside me. “I want to tell you everything, if you’ll give me a chance to.”

“You don’t want to. You got busted, and now you have to.”