My arms are wrapped around Will's shoulders as I hold him against me, my mouth pressed to his throat's pulse. He murmurs into my ear and I shut my eyes tightly, crying out and feeling myself soar.
I'm not sure how much time has passed before I feel him stirring next to me. He brushes the damp strands of hair away from my forehead and wraps an arm around my waist, pulling me against him. I curl my legs and turn to him, burying my head into his chest. I nearly drift off as he gently runs his hands up and down my back, the warmth of him at my front and the coolness from the open window behind me.
"Tell me about your family," he says after a spell, his voice muffled by my hair.
I groan, nestling more securely against him. "Let's not talk about that."
"I want to know everything about you."
"Not that." The drink has nearly worked its way through my system and now I buzz from the sensation of Will. I fight to hold on to the high, but the mention of my family has it slowly evaporating.
"You never talk about them."
"There isn't anything to say. They're dead."
"What happened?"
I groan, pushing away from him and sitting up straight. Will, his grey eyes serious, watches me as I pull the covers around myself.
"Why don't you want to tell me?"
I feel my face growing warm and fight to keep my breathing even. "It's just not something I like to discuss."
He raises himself up onto one elbow and regards me. I look away, fiddling absently with a loose thread in the bed sheet.
After a moment, one of his large hands comes down on mine, ceasing my fidgeting. "Kay."
I bite my lip. "If I tell you, you have to make a promise to me."
"What is it?"
"That nothing will change afterwards."
That half-grin. "That's ridiculous."
"Will."
"Kay." His brows lower sternly and I feel my heart softening. "Knowing you better won't change anything. After all the shit I've done, there's nothing you can say that will scare me off."
I stall a moment longer, tracing patterns on the bedspread before I draw a deep, shaky breath. "All right."
He pats the space in front of him on the bed and I lower myself so that I am lying with my back to him. He curls around me, his arm under my chin. I reach for his outstretched hand and play with his fingers, marvelling at how comparatively small my hand looks.
"Tell me." His voice is low in my ear.
"I was fourteen." I speak robotically, feeling as though I am outside of my body, watching us lying in the bed from a place high above. It is easier to speak when I imagine that I am narrating the story of a stranger. "My father, mother and I lived together in a tiny apartment. Frye—that's my brother—was lost in the Wastelands a few months previous. My father was never the same after Frye died. I don't think he wanted revenge—I think he wanted to create a change."
My father worked long hours in the quarry, but at night he would meet other commoners in our kitchen or down at the Beacon, speaking in low voices about revolution. At one point, it felt as though there was a very real possibility that we would rise up and take a stand against all the injustices wrought upon us by the King and the Court.
I recall coming down to the kitchen late one night to find a single lamp burning and my father sitting at our tiny table with his friends, their heads bent closely together as they spoke in hushed tones. I stomped into the room and slammed my hands down between them.
"I know what you're planning," I declared with all the fierceness I could muster. "And I want to help."
His friends chuckled at my outburst but my father remained perfectly still, regarding me without a word for several moments. I bit my tongue, maintaining eye contact with him and drawing myself up as tall as I could.
In telling the story, I can see clearly my father's lined, tired eyes and his dark beard, speckled with grey. His hands were large and there was constantly a line of dirt under the trimmed nails from his days spent at the quarry.
Eventually, a weary smile crept up his lips; wordlessly, he pushed one of the kitchen chairs back, inviting me to join them. I remember how mature I felt, sitting with him and the other rebels while they discussed revolution. To me, they were the bravest people in the entire world. I never for a moment thought their dream would end the way it did.
The night they came for us, I was awoken from a sound sleep by my mother frantically shaking my shoulder.
"Kay, wake up," she whispered.
I cracked my eyes open, blinking in an effort to adjust to the darkness. "What is it?" I asked, wincing as she grabbed me by my upper arm and pulled me from my cot. Her auburn hair was mussed from sleep and she'd thrown a patched shawl haphazardly around her shoulders.
"Get under the bed," she urged desperately.
I heard the front door of our flat being forced open, then several booted feet marching into our home.
"Who's there?" I asked her, fearfully.
Her eyes were wide. My father's voice sounded from the hall, calm and measured.
"Under the bed. Now!"
My mother pushed me to the floor and I scrambled beneath the cot, willing myself to be as small and flat as possible. I held my breath as my bedroom door flew open.
From my vantage point under the cot, I could see my mother's feet. "What do you want?" she demanded.
"This household has been charged with conspiracy and treason. Captain Harmen has ordered you all to gather in the main room." The voice from my doorway was that of a stranger and presumably a King's guard, from the looks of his shiny boots. "Where is your daughter?"
"She isn't here. She's staying with a friend." My mother's voice was strong and unwavering, not missing a beat.
The shiny black boots stepped up next to her scuffed slippers. I watched them drag her away, protesting.
Once they had left, I heard muffled voices from the other room. I slowed my breathing as much as possible and strained my ears to try and pick up what was being said.
My father's deep voice rang out: "I'm telling you, you've made a mistake. My family is innocent; it's me you want. I will go to the Palace quietly, if you leave them be."
I clenched my hands into fists and shook with fear.
"We aren't here to arrest you. Your punishment is to be carried out immediately."
"Please, you don't have to do this." My mother's strong voice had broken.
What was happening out there?
I heard metal grating against leather.
"No!" a voice yelled out, and then my mother uttered a single, blood-curdling scream.
I clawed my way out from under the bed and ran to my father's room, where I yanked open the door of his bedside table and with trembling fingers grappled for the dagger hidden within.
There was another scream, followed by a hideous gurgling. I nearly tripped over my own feet from a combination of adrenalin and fear as I tore down the hall back to the main room.
The floor was bathed in crimson. I stopped in my tracks, my addled brain fighting to make sense of the scene. Several guards stood on either side of the room while my mother sprawled out on the floor, blood staining her clothes, unmoving. My father was on his knees, facing me, the captain's sword held to his neck. His eyes widened when he saw me, frozen in the doorway with the dagger clenched in my shaking hand.
"Run." My father managed a single word before the captain sliced the sword cleanly across his throat. Blood gushed from the wound in a fountain, drenching the front of his tunic and cushioning his fall as he slumped face first down onto the floor.
My body became incredibly light and my vision spotted. The shadow of a stranger moved toward me and I swiped blindly in their direction, vaguely aware of some resistance against my dagger as a disembodied voice cried out in pain. I drew my eyes up slowly to see the man—little more than a boy—pull back, clutching his arm where it was spotted with blood.
"Get her," my parents' murderer ordered.
The guards began to close in on me, swords drawn. As if in slow motion, I felt myself reach out toward a table near the doorway. I knocked an oil lantern off it and watched with fascination as the fire began to spread.
The books scattering the floor in piles ignited, the flames hungrily devouring them. The guards drew back, their arms over their mouths to block out the smoke. Through the haze, I could just make out the man who had killed my parents: his shiny captain's badge and the sunken lines of his face seared into my memory.
Run.
I gave the still forms littering the floor of my home one last glance before I turned and darted back down the hallway.
Bootsteps pounded the floor behind me as I tore toward the window of my parents' bedroom. I leaped onto the bed and aimed for the dark, star-spotted night sky. In the next instant, I was airborne, completely weightless and free.
All too soon, the ground rose up beneath me and my legs crumpled as I landed, shocked by the sudden impact. Pain shot up my left leg and sparked an inferno in my knee. I pulled my leg to my chest, only in that moment realizing I was still clutching my father's dagger.
I raised my eyes to the storey I had fallen from. A single figure stood in the window, staring down at me, silhouetted by the flames roaring behind. At the sight of the guard, my heart hardened and broke, my loss suddenly and monumentally apparent.
He would pay for what he had done. That night, the King and Captain Harmen made an enemy of the wrong girl.
I somehow managed to drag myself to my feet and limp away—away from the burning flat, the King's guard and what was once my family. I took nothing with me but my father's dagger and a searing hatred in my heart.
I unlace my hand from Will's and lie stone still, feeling his heartbeat against my spine. For a long moment, we exist like that, both completely aware of the other's presence but absorbed in our own worlds.
After an eternity, I feel his arms tighten around me, drawing me closer. His body sends an excruciating heat through my middle, spreading down to my toes and the tips of my hair. I allow him to hold me as the first tears I have cried in five years trickle down my cheeks and soak his pillow.