“What was what like?”
Caleb fidgeted on the edge of the chair. “Being out there, away from al of… this?”
“Oh.” I propped myself onto my elbow. Most halfs had no idea what it was like. Sure, they mingled in the outside world—mingled being the key word—but they were never a part of it, not for any amount of time. Neither were the pures. To our kind, the mortal life seemed like a violent one, where daimons weren’t the only evil things people had to worry about.
Yeah, we had our crazies, too. The guys who didn’t have the word “no” in their vocabulary, the back-stabbing girls, and people who’d do anything to get what they wanted. But it was nothing like the mortal world, and I wasn’t sure if that was a good or bad thing.
“Wel , it’s different. There are so many people who are different. I kinda blended in to a point.”
Caleb listened with far too much excitement for his own good as I tried explaining what it was like out there.
Whenever we moved around, Mom had used compulsions to get me into the local school system without transcripts.
Caleb showed way too much interest in the mortal school system, but it was different than the Covenant. Here, we spent most of our days fighting in class. Out in the mortal world, I’d spent most of my classes staring at the chalkboard.
Being curious about the outside world wasn’t necessarily a good thing. It usual y led someone to make a run for it.
Mom and I had been more successful than most of those who’d ventured out. The Covenant always found the people who tried to live in the outside world.
They’d just found us a little too late.
Caleb tilted his head sideways as he studied me. “How you doing being back here?”
I lay back down, staring up at the ceiling. “Good.”
“Seriously?” He stood up. “Because you’ve been through a lot.”
“Yeah, I’m okay.”
Caleb made his way over and sat down, practical y shoving me on my side.
“Ouch.”
“Alex, the crap that’s happened has to have, you know, bothered you. It would’ve messed with me.”
I closed my eyes. “Caleb, I appreciate your concern, but you’re practical y sitting on me.”
He shifted, but remained beside me. “Are you gonna talk to me about it?”
“Look. I’m doing okay. It’s not like it hasn’t bothered me.”
I pried my eyes open and found him watching me expectedly. “Okay. It’s messed with me. Happy?”
“Of course I’m not happy.”
One thing I wasn’t good at was talking about how I felt.
Hel , I wasn’t even good at thinking about how I felt. But it didn’t look like Caleb was moving any time soon. “I… try not to think about it. It’s better that way.”
He frowned. “Real y? Do I need to use basic psychology on you and go with, ‘it’s probably not a good thing you don’t think about it?’”
I groaned. “I hate psychobabble, so please don’t start.”
“Alex?”
I sat up, ignoring the way my back screamed, and pushed him off the couch. He caught himself easily. “What do you want me to say? That I miss my mom? Yes. I miss her. That it total y sucked seeing her get drained by a daimon? Yes, it sucked. Fighting daimons and thinking I was going to die was fun? No. It wasn’t fun. That also sucked ass.”
He nodded, accepting my little rant. “Did you get to have a funeral for her or anything?”
“That’s a stupid question, Caleb.” I pushed back the hair that had escaped my ponytail. “I didn’t get to have a funeral.
After I kil ed the daimon, there was another one. I ran.”
His face paled. “Did anyone go back for her body?”
I cringed. “I don’t know. I haven’t asked.”
He seemed to mul it over. “Maybe if you had a ceremony for her, it would help. You know, a little gathering just to remember her.”
I leveled a hard look at him. “We’re not having a funeral. I mean it. If you even think about something like that, I wil risk getting expel ed just to kick your ass.” Having a funeral meant facing that my mother was dead. The wal —the toughness I’d built around me—would break and I... I couldn’t deal with that.
“Okay. Okay.” He held up his hands. “I just thought it would bring you some closure.”
“I have closure. Remember? I saw her die.”
This time he was the one to cringe. “Alex… I’m so sorry.
Gods, I don’t even know how you must’ve felt. I cannot even imagine it.”
He then took a step forward, as if he intended to hug me, but I waved him off. Caleb seemed to get I didn’t want to talk about it anymore and he switched back to safer topics
—more gossip, more tales of Covenant shenanigans.
I remained on the couch after he’d snuck back out of the dorm. I should’ve been hungry or ready to go socialize, but I wasn’t. Our conversation—the part about my mom—
lingered like a festering wound. I tried focusing on the gossip I’d learned. I even tried thinking about how nice Jackson looked now—even Caleb, because he’d real y fil ed out in the last three years—but their images were quickly replaced by Aiden and his arms.
And that was so wrong.
I shifted back down and went back to staring at the ceiling. I was okay. I was great, actual y. Being back at the Covenant was far better than being out there in the normal world or cleaning toilets in some pure’s house. I rubbed under my eyes, frowning. I was okay.
I had to be okay.
CHAPTER 6
I WANTED TO CURL UP IN A HOLE AND DIE.
“There you go.” Aiden nodded as I deflected one of his blows. “Use your forearm. Move with purpose.”
Move with purpose? How about moving to a spot where I could lie down? That was a purpose I could get behind.
Aiden launched himself at me and I blocked his jab. Hel yeah, I was good at that. Next, he swung around, and for someone so freaking tal , he sure could move that body like a ninja.
The heel of his foot slipped past my arms and slammed into my side. The impact barely registered on my pain scale. By now, I’d gotten used to the sharp spike of pain and the throbbing that fol owed. I inhaled slowly and tried to breathe through the agony. Half-bloods don’t show pain in the face of the enemy. At least I remembered that.
Aiden straightened, concern flickering over his face. “You okay?”
I clenched my teeth. “Yes.”
He approached me, looking doubtful. “That was a pretty hard hit, Alex. It’s okay if it hurts. We’l take a few minutes.”
“No.” I walked it off while he watched. “I’m fine. Let’s try this again.”
And we did. Missing a few jabs and kicks was far better than having to run laps like yesterday or spend the entire afternoon in the gym.
That’s what’d happened when I’d whined about my back and sides hurting last time. Aiden went through several more blocking techniques a ten-year-old could master while I obsessively watched his movements. Over the past couple of days, I’d realized how far behind I
real y was, and even I was amazed by the fact I’d managed to kil two
daimons.
I couldn’t even block most of Aiden’s kicks.
“Watch me.” He circled me, his body taut. “There is always some-thing that’l give away my next move. It could be a fine tremor of the muscle or a brief glance, but there is always something. When a daimon attacks, it’s no different.”
I nodded and we squared off again. Aiden moved in with one swipe of the hand. I knocked his arm away, and then the other. It wasn’t his jabs or punches I had a problem with.