It's Only a Matter of Time

Chapter 10

A/N: So in this chapter, we switch back to Inej's POV. There's no sign for this, you guys just need to remember that :)

Which meant Nina had a secret to seek out.
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Nina pestered her all day for more information on what Kaz had said to her, so much that Inej regretted telling her best friend (about all that) at least 15 times.

When Inej finally managed to slip away under the guise of taking a shower, it was already dark outside.
She jogged upstairs, away from all the voices, and slipped into the bathroom. Inej sat down against the door and allowed herself a few moments of enjoying the peace and quiet before she started her shower.

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A good while later, Inej came out of the bathroom, nice and clean. She had done her best to dry off her hair, but the occasional cold droplet of water still slipped out, sliding into her shirt and all the way down her spine.
Her hair had been too wet to braid tightly as she usually did, so for now, Inej's hair hung unbound, reaching almost to her waist in a sleek black curtain.

As she was making her way downstairs, trying not to drip on the floor, Inej heard the creak of a floorboard behind her. She turned around to see who it was, and came face to face with none other than the person who had caused her to be interrogated by Nina for the better part of the day.

"Kaz." Inej smiled slightly. "Sorry if I dripped on the floor. It's hard to dry hair like mine."

Kaz, for his part, looked surprised, both at seeing Inej out here and at the state of her hair, unbound and dripping.

No, "surprised" wasn't the right word. The word Inej would have used was "startled". As if she had caught him off guard.
Just then, Inej caught sight of Kaz' hands. They were bare again, and in one hand, Kaz held a pair of what looked like his gloves. There was a long rip down the side of the right one, which would explain why he wasn't wearing them.

Inej's eyes crept up, almost by themselves, to the underside of Kaz's left wrist. It was the spot everyone had their soulmate markings...

And there, contrasting brightly against the pale skin of his wrist, there were numbers!

Kaz's wrist was tilted, so all Inej caught was a "0".

Just like on her wrist.

Inej's heart seemed to skip a beat, so she forced herself to relax. It was only the last digit of his soulmate number, and told her practically nothing. It just meant he had 0 single-digit minutes until he met his soulmate. His wrist could have said some drastically large number, but had 0 as the last digit. Like "157892:40". That was over 18 years.

Inej had no way of knowing. So she forced herself to calm down and breathe deeply, reorienting her gaze from Kaz's wrist back to his face.

As soon as Inej did that, Kaz turned his wrist so that there were no more numbers showing. He met her gaze for a second, and seemed to be about to say something, when a droplet of water dripped down the back of Inej's shirt. She hissed at the sudden cold, and that seemed to jolt Kaz back to real life.
Without saying a word, he turned around and went back into his room. Inej heard the loud click of the lock.

"Again with the weird stuff," she muttered under her breath. Unfortunately, the hallway had amazing acoustics, so Inej's quietly said words sounded as if she had said them out loud.

Inej heard a hiccup behind the door, then what sounded like quiet laughter, muffled by a pillow. She knew the sound well, as she and Nina had made it a fair bit during their sleepovers in the past.

Inej stood in her spot for a second, replaying in her head the sound of Kaz laughing. From how he held himself, she wouldn't have guessed he was capable of such a thing. But no, she'd heard it just now, with her own ears. Or at least she thought she had. It could have come from some other room, or not have been laughter at all. Maybe someone had broken into Kaz's room, and the dark-eyed boy had been suffocating them with a pillow.

With Kaz, you never knew.

A/N: So a LOT happens in this chapter. Inej gets a glimpse at Kaz's soulmate markings, and a chance at them matching hers!!

She starts getting closer with Kaz, and even makes him laugh (unless that was him suffocating someone with a pillow...)

Please comment on how I'm doing so far :)