The Uprising (Book #3 in The Inception Trilogy)

chapter twenty-nine

(just a notice, I have a new username! I'm now juliaxwrites... someone who hasn't been on in six years has just "juliawrites" so there's my luck but I just wanted all of you to know so you aren't confused! I was tired of my cringy, 2012 username, haha. oh, also this is **unedited** and short because I'm a flop. oh well... hope you enjoy anyways xx)

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

"WE SHOULD PROBABLY LEAVE now," Evelyn says, or moreso mumbles with Harry's lips detaching and reattaching with hers. She can't push him away even though she knows she needs too. Poor Talon may be outside the door for all they know.

"We probably should," Harry murmurs back, kissing her again, their chests together.

She slides her hands down from his hair onto his shoulders. "Harry, really." But she laughs when he cuts her off with yet another kiss.

Harry pouts, pulling away only far enough to press their foreheads together. "I've been waiting to kiss you for months, Evelyn."

She blushes, but covers it up by flicking him in the nose. "Well, if things go according to plan, you'll have years to make up for it."

He scrunches his nose when she taps it again. She swears it's the cutest thing she's ever seen in her life. "Don't flick me."

"Why not?"

"It makes me feel like I'm five."

She flicks his nose.

"Evelyn."

She does it once more.

He gives her a look that makes her burst into a fit of giggles. She's not sure where all this sudden glee came from, but it's a blissful escape. She knows it won't last. It never does. But she treasures it while it's here, even if her giggling makes her look borderline insane.

"Stop laughing at me," he says, but he's smiling too, and soon he's laughing along with her. Her arms circle around his neck while his wrap tightly around her waist. She shoves her face in his chest, her tears from laughing soaking through but he doesn't stop her. Somehow she manages to calm down. He does too. Neither of them move.

He rests his chin on her shoulder, his face in her hair. "I love you," he whispers so quietly, she may not have heard it were she not planning on saying the same.

"I love you too." She doesn't raise her head from his shirt. She's scared to. Their exchange sounded far too much like a goodbye, like this is their last moment to be together. She doesn't want him to let her go. She doesn't want to let him go.

"Harry?"

"Hmm?"

"We'll be okay, right?"

In response, he places a feather-light kiss on her neck.

She closes her eyes in peace, but clutches him as if to save herself from falling.

She feels like she is.

Like they all are.

"Evelyn," he says, having to forcefully tug her shoulders to pry her off him. He looks at her with such concern. It makes her nauseous. He intertwines their fingers, raising her knuckles to his lips. "We'll be okay."

God, she hopes he's right.

"No one," she starts, then has to take a deep breath and start again. "No one else is going to die."

He wishes he could agree with her. She can see it so plainly on his face that he wants to agree, wants to nod along.

He doesn't.