Chapter 12: Terms, You Said

I lasted until two in the morning.

I lay on my bunk in the dark with the Hollow snoring around me and stared at the ceiling.

I was angry about the year.

I was angry about the river, and the card from Blood Ridge, and the way the whole Hollow had looked at me in the war room.

Mostly I was angry about the way he had said: under me.

Every time I closed my eyes, I heard him say it in that flat voice, in front of the whole room.

My skin felt too tight.

The warmth in my chest had stopped being gentle and had started to burn.

I got up.

I put on my jacket over my T-shirt and walked barefoot to the elevator.

The Crown floor was dark except for one lamp.

Ansel was standing at the long window in his shirtsleeves, with a glass he wasn't drinking from.

He turned before I reached him.

"Brinley."

"Don't talk," I said.

"You set terms."

"I know what I set."

"Four of them."

"I know." I crossed the room. "I'm asking."

His glass hit the sill.

"You're asking," he said carefully. "You're sure."

"I just walked up thirty floors in bare feet because of a speech you gave to eleven strangers. Do I look unsure?"

"Terms, you said," he murmured. "Six hours ago."

"I'm breaking them. Put your hands on me."

He did.

He took my face in both hands and kissed me hard enough to push me back against the glass.

The cold of the window ran down my spine, and the heat of him ran down the front of me.

I fisted my hands in his shirt.

I tore it open, and a button hit the floor and rolled.

He made a rough sound against my mouth.

"There you are," he said. "I've been waiting for this one."

"Shut up."

"Yes, Warden."

He pulled my jacket off, then my T-shirt, and stopped.

I stood there with the city behind me and nothing on from the waist up.

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