Our Demons {Kai Parker Book 1}

chapter thirty-eight: In Which He's Sent Off Again

Two soft knocks sounded at the door.

She bit her lip, eyes shut tight as she prayed that he would listen to her. Even more importantly, that he would believe her.

Ria pushed the door and stepped inside, staring at the wall and the floor and the window and anywhere but at him.

It was easier said than done and despite the prep-talk Stefan gave her, Ria could feel her courage disappearing at the sight of his shadow in her side vision.

She made him promise not to give up on her in her last breaths, and it was a promise he kept. But when push came to shove she was the first to let go and make him suffer.

I have to make this right, she persuaded herself. She owed him that much.

"How are you?"

He stared back at her with furrowed brows, his brown eyes darker from the anger he was feeling in his chest. He was clenching his jaw as he sat at the corner of the bed, holding his shaking hands in front of him.

"Why can't you just leave me alone?"

A shiver ran down her back- his voice was raw with pain.

Kai could mask his emotions with a dozen facial expressions, he could change the topic with such precision that you'd be left wondering what the initial topic of discussion was, he could disappear. But what he couldn't mask was the emotion that poured itself into his voice.

Tears blurred her vision and she held back a sob, blinking away her weaknesses. She clasped her hands behind her, shuffling from one foot to another- knowing that every word that left her mouth from this point on would be judgement enough for him.

"Because" a deep breath, "you didn't leave me alone."

A humourless laugh escaped his mouth, "You don't know how much I regret that."

"Don't say that."

"But it's true. It would have saved me from all these emotions, from trouble, it would have saved me time."

She looked to the ground in shame. "I was unfair to you. Begging you not to give up on me but being the first to let go. Nothing can excuse what I did, and I don't want to give you excuses. What's done is done, it's in the past and if I could I would go back I would hold on longer. I would fight harder."

Kai ran a hand through his hair, looking out the window. "You know, I believed you. Hell, I believed myself. That we could work, that you would always be there for me and that you were the best thing that could have happened to me."

"We can have that again," Ria pleaded, "Things will be better this time."

"How?" he snapped his burning gaze to her, asking the question again with such distaste on his tongue.

"I'll follow you everywhere you go. If you decide to walk to the ends of the world in search of impossibility, I'll be there with you every step of the way. If you mess up- once or twice or a million times- I'll be there to forgive you."

She stepped cautiously towards him, reaching out to hold his hands. But when she touched his skin she became tempted to pull back.

Something wasn't right.

She paused- staring at the callouses on his hand and wondered why his hands were cold. Kai's touch was always warm, always.

She looked up at him, brushing her thumb against his knuckles and a voice in her head denies the man in front of her as being Kai.

Something wasn't right, she knew this much, but a stirring in her chest overpowered her suspicions.

Nothing's the same as before.