He cocked his head, giving her more of the good side. “You don’t really look like her, but I can tell you’re hers. It’s the freckles, maybe. You look more like me. Or how I used to look. When I knew Jess.”
Griffin shifted.
Get on with it
, the rustle of his pants seemed to say.
Heath Colfax was her father, but she couldn’t call him Dad. Not after how he’d treated Xavier and hundreds of other Tedrans. Not after the way his memory had haunted Xavier for so long, and how that memory had destroyed what little life he’d been given. She wanted to tell Colfax a million things, none of which had to do with the fire elementals or her mother, but she didn’t even want to look at him, let alone talk to him.
Xavier had given himself to Lea and Michael—had put himself in chains again for her. The least she could do was face this horrid man. Feeling brave, she, too, leaned on the table. “What happened to you?”
He grinned, and while it wasn’t malicious, it certainly wasn’t pretty. He turned his burned side to her. “You mean this?”
She nodded, her throat tightening.
“Fire elemental,” he said.
She straightened in her chair. Griffin went still.
“That’s what you wanted to hear, right?”
“Was that not how it happened?” she asked.
“No, that’s how it happened.” He coughed and it was a gruesome sound. “I was coming off a massive, two-day bender. Still drunk. Nothing but Jessica and what’s-his-name, the lawyer they ordered her to marry, on my mind. I literally stumbled
into their territory. Didn’t even recognize the shift in signatures until I was surrounded.” He shrugged and the movement of his shoulder below his melted ear was stunted. “I could’ve gotten out of there easily. They didn’t know me from Adam, to borrow a Primary phrase. But I wasn’t thinking and I opened my big mouth. Told them exactly who I was. Who I thought they were.”
“What did you say?” Griffin asked, a little impatiently.
Colfax shot a steel glare at Griffin. “How the fuck should I know? Was half in the bag and ready to slit my own throat because of your boss.”
Griffin pushed off the door. “You mean the boss who’s imprisoned in here with you?”
Cat threw out her arms, one to each man. Griffin settled back against the door. Cat laced her fingers on the table and pushed herself into Colfax’s line of sight.
“You told Gwen Carroway,” she said, “that you’d tell us what you remembered about the fire elementals’ location if I came here and met you. I’m here.”
He just stared. And stared. One of his eyes looked slightly foggy, like maybe the fire had stolen half his sight, too. “Did he come back here for you?”
Cat looked over her shoulder in confusion. “Who? Griffin?”
“No. 267X.”
Cat’s stomach tumbled. A sudden and terrifying hate made the blood surge in her veins. “He has a name and it’s Xavier.”
“Did 267X come back to the Plant for you?” Heath snarled, bending over the table. “Or did he come back because he was forced to? Because something was held over his head?”
She didn’t say anything, because the answer to those last two questions was
yes
.
“They’re a weak race, Cat. They depend on us to tell them what to do. You don’t want someone like that. You don’t want a
Tedran
.”
“Xavier has absolutely nothing to do with the reason I’m in this room with you.”
You son of a bitch
. She struggled to not explode, to not set off Colfax in the process. “Leave him out of it.”
Colfax drove a fist into the table and she jumped. “He has
everything
to do with you and me. He’s a filthy whoreslave.
And he was touching you. Had his hands all over you. Dirty, fucking Tedran. And you let him! My daughter, my blood, with one of
them
.”
Now
Colfax was crying. No, not really crying. His sobs had nothing to do with love and everything to do with hate and rage.
“Do you know what he’s done?” he said, trying to catch his breath. “Do you even understand what he
is
?”
She began to shake. A barely contained fury exploded in her heart and made her skin vibrate. How much could she say? How much was worth it? If he got upset enough, would he withhold the information about the Chimerans, just to spite her? Heath Colfax would always be locked up in the Plant, where his words couldn’t hurt Xavier or her, but the Ofarians still needed protection. They needed what was in his head.
She gritted her teeth and replied, “Of course I understand what he is.”
How her mind would have been poisoned, if she would have been raised by this man.
“You don’t want him.” Spit flecked his lips.
“Yes. I do.”
“I’ve known him since he was fourteen. He’s nothing. He’ll turn you into nothing.”
“You didn’t
know
him at all!”
“I know enough. He’s empty. He’s ruined. He’ll soil you.”
She jumped up, turning. Griffin’s eyes widened with panic, his hands pressing in a “sit down” gesture. “The Chimerans,” he mouthed.
She only half turned back to Colfax, finding she couldn’t look straight at him anymore. “Where are the fire elementals?”
He leaned back in his chair, shackled wrists falling to his lap. “You have to do something for me first.”
“What? I’m here. I met you. And let me say, it hasn’t been the experience I was hoping for.”
He ignored that. “Here’s what I want you to do.” Colfax raised those familiar eyes up to Griffin. “I want two radios. One here in this room, the other I want taken to 267X.”
The sudden heaviness in her limbs tried to drag her to the ground. “What? Why?”
Colfax fixed that stare back on her. “Because you’re going to cut him loose. And I want to hear you do it.”
She opened her mouth but no sound came out. Not a refusal, not a scream, not even a gasp. It was impossible to believe she’d heard those words correctly.
“You’re going to tell him,” Colfax went on, kneading at his throat like too much talking had hurt him, “that you choose your people over him. Whatever it is you think is between you two is held together by wishes and spider silk. Invisible, thin, made of nothing but an idea. Nothing that delicate is ever meant to be permanent.”
Fuck you
, was what she wanted to say. Was
dying
to shout in his face. This wasn’t about him and Jessica. She wanted to fly across the table and tear into that disgusting webbed skin.
She shook her head. “I won’t do it.”
He looked pointedly at Griffin. “Then you don’t get the location.”
Griffin surged forward. For a moment she thought he’d strike Colfax, but he pulled up. “Goddamn you. Xavier has nothing to do with this.”
Colfax looked up at Griffin, incredulous. “She’s my blood. She’s an
Ofarian
. And you let this happen?”
Griffin held his ground. “The marriage rules you despised, the very rules that took Jessica and Cat from you in the first place, you’d have had me uphold? Cat’s a grown woman and can do what she wants. Who the hell do you think you are?”
Colfax didn’t blink. “I’m the guy with what you need most.”
Cat stared at the table, considering everything her father demanded and all the possible repercussions.
Even if she did as Colfax wanted, Xavier wouldn’t believe her. He
couldn’t
believe her.
Except…what if he did? What if he left here thinking she was telling him the truth? It would destroy him. And she hadn’t told him she loved him because she thought it wouldn’t have mattered. That the timing hadn’t been right.
She was a horrible, selfish person.
She didn’t want to reject Xavier, but she had to give her people a chance to plead their case to the Chimerans, to stop violence and death before it happened. He
shouldn’t
believe what Colfax wanted her to tell him, but because Xavier had
always feared she’d eventually choose her people over him, he would.
He would.
And because he wanted to be far, far away from her people and this place, he would leave.
“Cat,” Griffin said next to her. “It’s your call.”
But she knew Griffin didn’t really believe that—or want her to take the time to find another way.
She felt completely disconnected from everything. A puppet. A breathing husk of a person. “Okay.” The single word sounded like it came from far above and beyond her body.
Beside her, Griffin exhaled, but with it came a little groan of sorrow. She would never let anyone say the Ofarian leader was heartless, or that he didn’t struggle with making tough decisions.
“It’s the only thing to do,” Colfax said, his voice softening like all of a sudden he was this sympathetic, warmhearted father. “You’ll learn I was right, and then you’ll come back and—”
“Enough,” Griffin snapped. “I’ll take Xavier the radio.”
Yes
. Cat perked up.
Griffin had heard everything that had gone on in this room. He knew how she truly felt about Xavier—suspected, at least, but it wasn’t exactly a secret. He’d give Xavier the radio, tell him that everything that was about to come out of Cat’s mouth was crap, and Cat would tell Xavier whatever the heck Colfax wanted. She and Xavier would disconnect, Colfax would give them the Chimerans’ location.
Voila
.
“Nuh-uh.” Colfax waved a finger. “You’ll call for another guard. You’ll tell the guard, within my hearing, to bring 267X the radio. After Cat’s done, if the stars-cursed Tedran hasn’t left on his own, I want his ass thrown out of here. For good. And if I hear anything from the two of you that might tip your hand, my lips are sealed. Also for good.”
Cat had thought she’d hated Michael, but what she felt toward her own father at that moment made Michael’s machinations seem like a minor annoyance, a fly in the ear.
Griffin caught her gaze and held it. He knelt before her. “We have to. There are no other options and no time.”
She just stared. The cheery yellow wall paint had chipped away in a spot, showing the dismal Plant gray underneath. Just a show, that’s all this was, inside and out.
“You’ll get him back,” Griffin whispered.
She had no response to that. Wishes and spider silk. Her bastard father had spoken the truth. Maybe, if that’s all that had tied them together, it was never meant to last in the first place. That had been their thought from the very beginning, hadn’t it? Maybe they’d been wrong to fight it.
She nodded at Griffin. He stood and spun for the door in the same movement. Opening it, he gestured to someone outside. “David.” He waggled an invisible phone. “Need two two-ways.”
David had them on his person and handed both radios to Griffin, who only took one. David raised an eyebrow.
Griffin cleared his throat. “Take the other to Xavier. He should be in Cell Block One. When we’re done talking to him, escort him out.”
David blinked. “Out of the Plant?”
“Yes. Let me know when it’s done.”
“Yes, sir.”
Cat silently pleaded with the stars—those tiny, sparkling things she’d once only thought of as pretty—that David had been clued in by Griffin’s behavior and would give Xavier some sort of warning.
But then, what sort of allegiance did David owe Xavier? None at all.
She sat on her shaking hands. Her elbows vibrated against her sides. After many long, heavy minutes, the radio in Griffin’s hand crackled. Xavier’s voice filled the silent conference room. “Griffin?”
Griffin turned the radio in his hand and held it out to her.
She took it, clicked the button on the side and closed her eyes. Feeling Xavier over the line, his presence that large in her consciousness. “It’s me.”
“Cat. What’s going on?”
Something awful.
“You have to leave.”
“Leave. Leave the Plant?” There was unspeakable strain in his voice.
Don’t leave me.
“And me.”
“What?”
The radio exploded in static.
I need you.
“You can’t be here anymore. And I’m staying.”
“You just told me to fucking stay. That you were coming back.”
“I know what I said.”
And I meant every word.
A deep, long silence. “Is
he
making you do this? Did he force you to choose between me and the Ofarians?”
Yes! Yes, he is! It’s not what I want at all.
“No.”
“Bullshit. That’s bullshit, Cat.”
It is. Don’t believe a word of it.
It was too hard. She opened her eyes. She didn’t want to look at Colfax, but her gaze traveled to him anyway.
Your people
, he mouthed.
“The Ofarians…” she began, but her voice was shaking so much Colfax gave her a furious look and Griffin tensed at her side. One slip—one moment in which Colfax became unhappy—and all the Ofarians were lost. Griffin had said she’d get Xavier back. She had to hold on to that. She pressed the talk button, cleared her throat, and started again. The button was slick with her sweat. The less she said, the better.
“The Ofarians are my people.”
But I found my home with
you.
“You’re letting me go. For them. For
him
.”
No. Never
. “Yes.”
She remembered the late night in Shed, how he’d described her people like he might describe cannibals or child molesters. How, in his eyes, she’d ceased to be just Cat and had become another Ofarian.
Then she’d touched him, whispered to him. He’d put himself inside her, filling her in more ways than one. In those moments, he’d forgotten her label and she’d just been Cat.
She had to believe that would happen again.
Except right now, she was forced to say the opposite. “This should be easy for you, Xavier. You hate what I am. You don’t want me to be Ofarian. We could be together for a hundred years and you’d never be able to get over it. It would always be there, in the back of your mind, what I can do. What my people did to you.”
Oh, God. That was the ultimate truth. And it hurt more to say than the lies.
He roared, the radio falling to the floor with a crash. Then there was a string of horrendous sounds—
bang bang bang bang bang
—and Cat knew he was punching or kicking the bars of one of the cells. Every blow made her jolt. Every blow sent tears to her eyes.