Stay in control of the game.
Know the pieces to play and know your role.
I need him to infiltrate.
The end.
Full stop.
Before I left the room, I whispered the truth I wouldn’t let myself think too loudly.
I hadn’t planned for him to matter.
And that— that might be the deadliest poison of all.
16
LOUIS
The soul is the prison of the body. — Michel Foucault
Istared up at the ceiling, thinking about the vial of whatever poison she wanted to give me next. I almost shot a text to Cassian; instead, I kept staring. It didn’t help, but it gave me something to focus on.
At night it was harder.
I thought of him, I thought of his face. I thought of the pain, and it made the burn I felt in my soul, the guilt, lessen. I was using her the same way she was using me.
A soft knock sounded at my door.
“Come in.”
I smelled her before I saw her. The fragrance was expensive, not too flowery, more masculine, woodsy, like she was trying to be my peer not my partner. Tempest lay down next to me. “You’ll take the next shot of poison tomorrow morning, the final at night, and then?—”
"I turn into Cinderella?” I joked.
She ignored it. “Either I see you again and it was all worth it or…you simply cease to matter.”
"Jokes on them,” I whispered to myself, knowing it made me weak. “I don’t think I’ve mattered for a very long time.”
"How tragic to think you’ll never be missed.”
“How arrogant,” I countered, “to assumeyou’dbe missed at all.”
“Touché.” She slowly sat up. “We probably could have been friends in another life, maybe lovers, if you hadn’t been in love with my sister first.”
I’d expected her final blow, I knew it would be swift, deadly, so why did it hurt so much? We’d shared a few moments and she still threw everything back at me like she was so damn afraid to get close to feeling anything.
Without thinking, I grabbed her by the waist and pulled her back against me. “Sleep with me.”
“I’m not getting naked.”
“Did I say anything about getting naked?”
She squirmed.
I kissed the back of her head. “If I’m going to cease to exist tomorrow, possibly, I think I deserve right now, this moment, with the only one who might mourn me.”
"And if I say I’ll never give your death a second thought?”