“Sign!”

“Screw you.” I push him and climb to my feet under my own steam.

Before I’m halfway up, he hooks his foot behind my ankles and pushes me back down. “If you’re not going to do the smart thing and sign, you need to learn to protect yourself.”

“Archer taught me—”

“Don’t care. He isn’t the best. I am.” Killian waves a hand over my prone form, all here’s your proof. “Lesson one. Always strike your opponent while she—or he—is down.”

I glare at him. “Archer said the exact opposite. I’m supposed to help my enemy up and possibly win a lifelong friend.”

“That’s the perfect thing to do. If you want to be stabbed in the back later.”

Maybe. Maybe not. I thought the same thing while living at the asylum. But look at Sloan. At meeting one, we fought. We tried to kill each other. Now we protect each other.

Killian offers me a hand.

I hesitate. “I’ll let you teach me a few tricks, but that’s it. Afterward, I’m gone.”

“Very well. I’ll follow.”

Stubborn, frustrating boy! I reach out as if to take the offered hand only to kick out my leg.

He falls and I somersault on top of him, my knees pinning his shoulders, but he’s wily and more agile than I’m expecting. He swings his legs up and under my arms, pushing me to my back. When he crosses his ankles above my head, his calves pressing against my face, I’m effectively caged. He can smother me but opts to bend his knees at my sides and sit up.

The moment I have the smallest bit of freedom, I sit up, too. He’s straddling my waist, which means he keeps the advantage.

Time to up my game. “Killian.” I smile at him, running my hands slowly up his chest.

He closes his eyes for a moment. “This isn’t going to end well for me, is it?” he says, his tone dry.

“No. It’s not.” I lock my hands at his nape and use all my weight to fall backward, bringing him with me, bucking my hips midway down to roll him, placing my body on top of his.

Fingers suddenly fist in my hair and yank me backward. As I fall, I catch a glimpse of black hair and furious features. By the time I land, Elena has a gun aimed at my chest.

With a roar, Killian launches at her, slamming into her and knocking her to the floor beside me. The gun goes off, but he has a firm hold of her wrist, ensuring the bullet tears through the roof of the tent rather than my flesh.

He rips the gun from her grip, stands. “You don’t touch the girl. Ever.”

“She was attacking you.” Elena jumps to her feet. “She could have damaged your Shell.”

“Which sounds like a me problem. She’s mine. Mine to deal with. Not yours. Never yours.”

She raises her chin. “She may be yours, but you are mine.”

Killian stares at her for a long while before he laughs. A scary laugh. Then he goes quiet, and that’s even scarier. “I’m not. And now I’ll prove it.”

He raises the gun and—

Boom!

Chapter sixteen

“With us, all things are possible.”

—Troika

Elena collapses, the bullet striking her between the eyes. No blood spews or leaks from the wound, and by the time she hits the floor, she’s self-destructed, nothing but ash floating up, up through the new lunar panel in the tent.

“How could you...” I begin.

“She isn’t dead. I simply decommissioned the Shell, hit it in a spot that doesn’t damage the spirit inside. It’s a safety measure for the times a Laborer doesn’t have the strength to leave the Shell but must.” With barely a pause, he cups my cheeks and adds, “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.” And I am. The cold-blooded murder of a Shell isn’t really a big deal in the scheme of things. “I guess she got what she deserved for eating my cake, huh?”

“The cake. That’s your main concern? I don’t think I’ll ever understand you.” He empties the chamber of the gun, tosses the weapon aside and walks a circle around me. A slow prowl. He’s a predator who’s spotted his next meal. “You could have died tonight. Elena could have pulled the trigger. At this rate, you will die, and soon. Death clearly stalks you. How many signs do you need? Choose Myriad, Ten. Now.”

“What I need is time.”

“You’ve had time. It’s done you no good.”

Dang him! “Have you ever regretted your decision to stay with Myriad?”

He stops in front of me, saying, “Only once. When I lost Archer.” He pinches my chin and lifts, forcing my attention to remain on him. “What do you want, Ten? What can Myriad give you? A purpose? A place to call your own? Vengeance against your parents?”

“I can have each of those things in this life, on my own.”

“So. You want what you can’t find here.” He releases me. “You want a guarantee.”

Yes! “I want to not regret my decision forever.” Pressure...

“No one can give you a guarantee.”

“I know!” Growing... “Here, at least, I can tell myself that what happens is temporary. In the Everlife, I can’t do that. It’s permanent.”

“Until Second-death.”

“Well, I gather it’s much, much harder to kill a spirit than a human.”

“Maybe I’ll be killed if I fail to sign you.”

Pressure...exploding. Another manipulation. The last one I’ll tolerate.

With a screech, I take a swing at him. He ducks and my arm glides through air. But I’m already drawing back my other arm, already swinging it. This time, I make contact. My knuckles drive into his cheekbone. Pain shoots up my arm and pools in my shoulder as he wipes the Lifeblood from the corner of his mouth.

“Look at you, giving in to your emotions the way Myriad suggests,” he taunts. “Doesn’t it feel good?”

“Felt good,” I yell. “Now I’m stuck with a broken hand.” And guilt! I always complained about Vans’s hair-trigger temper, and today I acted just like him. Guilt is the worst, as much an enemy as fear!

Killian is gentle as he latches on to my wrist, studies my throbbing hand. “The bones aren’t broken, just bruised.”

I draw my arm to my side, my anger far from appeased. “Are you going to be killed if I choose Troika?”

He sighs. “No. But the fact that you belong in Myriad hasn’t changed. It’s meant to be.”

Meant to be. Meant to be.

The words reverberate through my mind, and I go still. For years, my mother told me, We make things happen. Then one day she came home and announced, I was wrong. If it’s meant to happen, it will happen. If it’s not, it won’t.

She changed her mind, because Myriad changed their stance. Truth evolves, they like to say.

Even my dad agreed. We learn as we grow.

While that’s certainly true, shouldn’t spiritual laws be rooted in a firm, uncompromising foundation?

Next, I remember what Archer once said to me. Believing in Myriad’s idea of fate allows people to shift blame for every travesty, every disaster and every decision to an outside force. It means that, no matter what choice I make, what is meant to be will happen, which ultimately means my choices are inconsequential.