Emmy surprised me by pulling me into a hard hug. “I knew, and I understood. I was determined to break through that wall you kept around yourself, and it took me forever, but once I did.” Her eyes were definitely misty now. “When you let me in, Willa … it was beautiful. You’re the best friend I could ever imagine having and my life is so much richer with you in it. Before you, there was no laughter in my life. There was no goodness.”
Now I was the one with a thick throat and misty eyes. I swallowed a few times before I managed to speak. “You were … I thought you were going to steal my family from me. But instead you became the only true family I’ve ever had. And as much as I’ve enjoyed our heartfelt moment, I would be a liar if I said I understood what the point of this last conversation has been.”
She threw back her head and laughed, the tinkling sound filling the bathroom. “Will, please … Never change.”
Yeah, that was never going to happen. I had tried. Most of my teachers had tried. It was impossible. I was stuck with my personality, with every negative thing the gods had cursed me with, and none of it was going anywhere. I was going to have to be me for the rest of my life.
“And my point was,” Emmy interrupted my mostly-useless train-of-thought. “You act like the Abcurses are so far above you. That you could offer them nothing and therefore you’re not surprised that they don’t want you. Any one of them would be lucky to be with someone like you, Will, and whatever pact they made, I don’t think it was about you not being good enough. There’s something bigger going on here, something about them we don’t know.”
Before I could push her further or ask about this mystery she thought the Abcurses were hiding, a banging on the outside door had us both jumping.
“Come on, dweller!” Coen shouted. “It’s time to go.”
Emmy stopped me before I could leave, whispering in my ear. “They don’t look at you like you’re nothing. They’re going out now to take on Elowin because she hurt you. They care … maybe try to let them in.”
I closed my eyes briefly, fighting down the emotions, before I opened them again and smiled sadly. “The problem is, I already have let them in.”
They were more in than anyone else had ever been. Even Emmy. They all literally held a piece of my soul in their hands, and it scared me on a primal level that I had never experienced before.
Seventeen
Apparently, we hadn’t moved from the bathroom fast enough because the door slammed opened and Coen was suddenly filling the space. His eyes were extra bright as they bore into me, before his gaze dropped slowly to run over me.
“Are you okay, dweller-baby?”
Those low, gravelly words grazed across my skin, igniting it as though my whole body was straining in anticipation of the pleasure-pain that his touch could bring. Emmy nudged me in the back, and when I glimpsed her from my peripherals, she was grinning like a crazy person. I turned to glare at her more fully and she mouthed told you before turning to make her way from the room.
Coen moved aside to let her free, and then there was more than just his giant form filling the area. Siret, Yael, Rome, and Aros pushed inside, each of them taking a moment to inspect me for injury.
I decided right then to not worry so much about their pact. For now, this worked for us, whatever this was, and I wasn’t going to ruin it by thinking too hard about it. They were my kindred souls. The rebels. The rule-breakers. The guys who gave the middle finger to the gods, the same way I had, my whole life. They were the friends I had been born to find, and I wasn’t going to let my annoying feelings push them away.
“So,” I said, smiling at the Abcurses.
Eyes narrowed, brows furrowed, and suspicion crept into their features.
I let out a huff. “What? It’s not like I never smile. I was hoping one of you could fill me in on the plan.”
Yael shook his head, before reaching forward and dropping a stack of clothes at my feet. “We’ll explain on the way. Put some proper clothes on. This isn’t the time for your usual penchant for nudity and those clothes look off, like you tried to mop the floor in them.”
That would have been the bucket of dirty soap water that had been poured all over me—wait, say what now?
I so did not have a penchant for nudity.
It just happened to me. The rest of the asshole-brothers were grinning at Yael. She so does have a penchant for nudity, the looks seemed to say.
How dare they unwittingly counter my thoughts!
I was so riled, I whipped my shirt up over my head and tossed it across the room without any hesitation whatsoever. My bra was next as I flicked it free, shorts and underwear following soon after. Well, kind of. I got them to my ankles and then as I tried to kick them free, I tripped over backwards, clipping the edge of one of the sinks and landing flat on my face. My shriek would have been loud and piercing, if it hadn’t been muffled by the shirt I’d landed on. The one I’d just flung off my body. Like a stubborn idiot with a penchant for nudity.
I really need to think things through more often.