Total pages in book: 177
Estimated words: 163209 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 816(@200wpm)___ 653(@250wpm)___ 544(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 163209 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 816(@200wpm)___ 653(@250wpm)___ 544(@300wpm)
Jean hadn’t met him, but he had met the man’s murderous cleaner Lola Malcolm. He still remembered the easy way she held herself, like the master and Riko were worth less than the heels she strode in on. Jean had found it horrifyingly offensive up until the master gave ground without hesitation. If Lola wanted Nathaniel, she had the master’s word the Ravens would relinquish all rights to him and stay out of her way. After that easy submission, Jean had been so blindingly afraid of her he’d barely slept for a week. Riko had counted it as a victory despite his uncle’s violent fury later, since Neil was guaranteed a slow and agonizing death.
“Oh, you did,” Cat said.
Jean wasn’t sure what she saw on his face, but he managed a rough, “Yes.”
Kevin finished his drink and reached for the bottle. Jean seized his wrist in a bone-creaking grip and said, “I will break it over your head.”
“You know it’s normal for college students to drink now and again, right?” Cat asked, lifting her can of beer and waggling it at him. “One day you really ought to try some, or maybe a little...” She made a pinching gesture near her mouth that he assumed meant cigarettes. She wasn’t cowed by the look he sent her but said, “Something to take the edge off before you snap out of existence. I know someone who’s got a medical card.”
Kevin tried pulling free, so Jean turned to glare at him. Kevin considered Jean with blasé amusement. He was well and truly drunk, then, and that only made Jean’s mood worse. Jean stabbed an accusatory finger at him and demanded, “You’re Queen of the US Court—for now. How long can you hold it when you’re drinking poison?”
“Always,” Kevin promised. “The last person who tried to take it from me died. Checkmate.”
And if the angry satisfaction in his voice wasn’t bad enough, Kevin had the nerve to smile. Jean let go like he’d been burned. He grabbed his empty mug on his way off the couch and left the room, needing to put space between them before he tried to claw Kevin’s eyes out.
He didn’t want more coffee, but setting up another pot gave his unsteady hands something to do. He gave up right before hitting brew and started digging through the cabinets instead. The sight of food left him queasy and out of sorts. He pushed the doors shut and turned back toward the coffee maker, only to realize he was no longer alone.
He hadn’t heard Kevin come in through the pounding in his temples, but Kevin was seated on the middle stool at the island. He’d refilled his glass before leaving the living room, and he was working his way through it as he watched Jean. Jean wanted to put it through the window.
“You are supposed to be better than this,” Jean said, a quiet accusation.
“You have always known what I am.”
Kevin had been a ward of the Moriyamas for most of his life: spending most of his early summers with Riko while his mother traveled, then moving in for good once Kayleigh Day was removed from the equation. Once the cage doors slammed, he was forbidden to put even a door between himself and his beloved, loathed brother Riko until the night Riko finally threw him away.
He’d grown up with the master’s unforgiving violence, the first body upon which Riko could practice his fledgling cruelties. The frequent public appearances demanded of the Raven pair could stay Riko’s knives but not his malevolent hunger; most of Kevin’s scars were branded into his heart and mind. By the time Jean was thrown at Riko’s feet, Kevin had mastered the art of putting mental walls between himself and whatever Riko was doing.
Jean had hated him for months. Incapable of stopping Riko’s sadism and forbidden to leave the room, Kevin had simply stepped as far back as he could and feigned normalcy, arguing Exy drills and statistics while Riko pressed burns into Jean’s pale skin. A soulless puppet who survived by hitching everything he was to his dream, or so Jean had believed, until the day Kevin leaned in and asked to learn French. It was the first hint he still had a personality of his own, that some part of Kevin Day existed separate from Riko Moriyama. It was proof that surviving Evermore was possible. Jean simply had to let go and stop fighting.
Now they were both free—of Riko, at least—but Kevin would still do anything he could to avoid processing the horrors of the Nest. Jean shouldn’t hold it against him, seeing how desperately he was struggling to keep his own nightmares at bay, but Kevin had always been the stronger of the two of them. Kevin’s defenses had been unshakable up until Riko broke his hand, and then they’d shattered to dust.