And the line goes dead, unlike my heart, which is beating like a stick on a drum.
“He’s really threatening to kill the guys…”
Lore chirps as she lands on my shoulder, sending waves of reassurance through me. “We knew this could happen, but you have to trust them, Serena. They can protect themselves. You just need to make sure you get him what he wants so we can be rid of him. No matter what happens, we are with you.”
Keaira growls, and her form shrinks until she is a reasonable size to fit on my shoulder, then she claws her way up my back. “What the bird said.”
“Serena, are you ready?” Paxton calls from the other side of the door. I open it to find him in his black training gear with light armor padding his vital organs.
“As ready as I’ll ever be, I guess,” I reply, jaw set, and shuffle around him, not bothering to look him in the eye.
“Serena… please. You know—”
Spinning on my heel, I poke him in his chest, wishing I could hurt him the way he’d been hurting me. “What I know is that you won’t let me talk to him. You keep saying he’s fine and that he’s okay, but if that was the case, then why isn’t he here with us? Why is he missing today when he knows how much it means to me… to us?”
Paxton says nothing. He just looks away and I nod. “I’ll see you downstairs.”
I take the stairs two at a time, and Keaira chuckles lightly in my ear.
“Damn, you know how to cut a man down.”
I shrug as I move to the front door where Dane and Rory wait for us, dressed similarly to Paxton. My arms immediately wrap around Dane, and I hug him to me, wishing he could take away all of the pain and pent up anger and hurt that had been fueling me for the past couple of weeks.
“Everything will be okay, Serena. I can feel it.” His arms wrap around me, he kisses my head, and the tension growing in the pit of my stomach lessens under his warmth.
Even though I know he can feel my guilt, he never asks about it, or what it could mean, but I know he has his theories and has hinted at them many times before.
But I don’t say anything. Only plead with him to drop it. And he just hugs me and tells me that he trusts me and that nothing I have done or would do could change what he thinks about me. Pulling back, I draw in a deep breath, my chest so tight I’m surprised I can even pull air into my lungs.
I hope he’s right.
“Are you ready?” Dane asks, and I can hear the other question behind his words. Are you sure this is what you want?
I give him a small smile and nod, thoughts of Rostova filling my mind. “I am, and besides, we can’t pull out now. We’ve come too far.”
The others nod, and we move outside toward a man wearing a tailcoat, the ground around him glowing emerald green. “Lady, gentlemen, are you ready?”
We share a look and nod, and he gestures for us to enter the circle and hold hands.
“Then please close your eyes and hold your breath. This might be a little disorientating,” he replies. I open my mouth to ask what we’re doing, but the air around us disappears, so much so it’s like there is no oxygen left in the world. My first instinct is to panic, but then ripples of colorful lights swirl like a vortex around us before disappearing. The oxygen returns, and I’m able to gasp for air.
The roar from the crowd echoes through the giant stadium, hundreds of feet long. We stand to the side, surrounded by the familiar faces of other students, bouncing on the balls of their feet.
“Welcome to the Colosseum. And good luck,” the man replies, and I barely hear what he has to say as a familiar pair of blue eyes stare back at me. The smile on Declan’s face disappears as a low growl rips from my throat.
“You motherfucker.”
“Serena,” Dane warns.
I stride toward him, ready to give him a piece of my mind, when a hand whacks the back of his head. I halt my march as he winces and turns to the older woman beside him who I hadn’t noticed—though now I wonder how I didn’t. Her studded, pink leather jacket squeaks quietly as she drops her arm.
Declan rubs the back of his head and shoots me a sheepish smile before turning back to the elderly woman. “What the hell was that for?”
Her weathered face hardens as she points a finger to me and then pokes him in the chest. “You haven’t spoken to that girl, and she has been worried sick about you.” She pokes him again, hard enough to make him flinch, and I immediately love her.
“I know I didn’t just spend the past couple of weeks talking to you for you to act like an idiot. Paxton should not have been the goffer between you. The poor boy took the brunt of her rightful anger. You need to start apologizing to both of them.” She turns and waggles her finger at me. “And you.”
My smile drops. “Me?”
“You need to apologize to Paxton. He was only trying to do what he felt was right.”
I open my mouth to send back a snide retort as I usually would, but the hurt in Paxton’s eyes floats through my mind, and I deflate. “Yes ma’am.”
I turn to Paxton, and he watches me with wide eyes as I wrap my arms around him and hold him tightly. “I’m sorry, Pax,” I speak quietly into his ear. “I know he’s your brother, and I treated you like shit even though you were just trying to protect us both. I’m sorry.”
After
