The Shadow Circle

Chapter 29

It was safe to say Elizaveta had a mild mental breakdown. And I was about to have one myself if she didn't stop wailing in my ear.

"I trusted you!" She cried. "You were my friend for two years!"

"You tried to kill me," he reminded her. I didn't think anything could faze Kai but seeing Elizaveta cry did the trick.

"I cared about you! We all did! Even Kestrel!"

Uh oh... suddenly I wished I was on the other end of the car.

"Kestrel knew," Julian muttered. "I think she did."

Elizaveta turned to me for confirmation. I took a second too long to answer and she burst out crying again.

Good God, the Dian Mu river is already flooded, you don't have to add to it.

Half of me wanted to remind her that she had bigger problems to cry about. The other half told me that reminding a crying person of their 'bigger problems' was not the best possible course of action.

"Elle, I'm still your friend," Kai said, reaching past me to hold her hand. "Please stop crying."

I stared at their entwined hands like it was a leech.

"Is this some sort of joke?! Are you all messing with me?! See how long the airhead falls for it?!" She yelled.

"Eliza!" I gasped.

"You don't get to talk Kestrel! You've always been treating me like I'm some idiot!" She snapped.

The words I haven't were at the tip of my tongue. But she was right, I did think she was less intelligent than Ryo, Kai, Julian and I. Maybe she was.

Kai was the most impulsive. She was the dumbest. Julian was the one with least guts and I was the most useless.

Maybe that's why we're failing.

But she wasn't stupid. Now that I think of it, she wasn't. Naïve? Maybe. Although I wasn't one to talk. She wasn't stupid, she was hopeful.

"You're not stupid," I blurted. "Deep down you must have known. You were blinded by the fact that he was your friend."

Kai shot me a look that would have send a grown man cowering in fear.

Fortunately, I wasn't a grown man.

I caught Elizaveta's hand. "You're right to be mad at me. You're probably the dumbest and I'm useless."

She barked out a bitter laugh.

"You don't understand Kes, if we fail do you know what Dragomirov will do to me?!" She demanded.

My hand tightened around hers.

"He's not going to touch you," Kai growled.

"Kai...three days and we've already fucked up," she sniffled.

"We didn't. It was bad luck, that's all," I told her.

"But let's face it, Kai is shot, Julian couldn't find the buyers and Nakamura knows you're here and the Circle suspects you've killed Talaq and Kes is going to lose her sister," Ryo said.

"I'm not going to lose my sister!" I told them. I wouldn't. I'd find a way. I'd find a way to save them all. Kai saved me, even if it was only because I knew his real name, even when he could have just killed me and gotten it over with.

My finger had swelled up around the cut. I was nearly mutilated. Fuck.

This wasn't a joke anymore. My life wasn't crazy or weird. It was in danger. It was in real fucking danger.