Kota grunted, cutting me off. His hands clutched at the edge of the chair. “That’s not how it works. You’ve got it all wrong.”
I sat back on my heels. A finger fluttered up to my lip. “What do you mean?”
He sighed heavily. He turned, sitting cross-legged on top of the chair. He held his arms out to me. “Come here.”
His arms encircled my waist and he pulled me into his lap. My cheek fell against his chest. His jaw nestled against the top of my head. His strong arms wrapped around me, closing in over my side and my back.
“Sang,” he whispered, his breath catching in my hair. “Girls don’t join the Academy often because it’s dangerous. If you thought it was dangerous for us, it’s even more dangerous for someone like you.”
“How?”
His nose pressed to the top of my forehead. “It’s too easy to fall into the role as bait. If a beautiful girl like you joins our team, we’ll get asked to let you become a target. We’ll have to stand back and watch as people like McCoy get too close.”
My breath lingered on escaping me completely. The compliment he said so casually was buried so deeply in what he was saying, that it seemed like an obvious remark when it was simply remarkable. “They would ask me that?”
“You can tell them no,” he said. “You could, but you probably won’t. They’ll give you a reason. They’ll tell you that you’re stopping a bad guy from doing it to other girls.”
“That’s a good reason,” I said. “I could do that.”
“I know. And you’re too good and brave and reckless that you’d agree to do it without a second thought. If they came at you with an offer and I wasn’t there, you’d say you’ll do it and I wouldn’t know until it was too late. You'd talk yourself into it.”
From what he’d told me, from what Mr. Blackbourne and the others revealed to me, there was something on the edge of my tongue that I wanted to ask but was unsure how to approach. The Academy, at first, appeared to be a private school for a select group of teenagers. Now it seemed so much more than that. Should I know this part? “Is it wrong to want to, anyway? What if I make sure you’re always around?”
“I can’t promise that. I don’t really want you to join, anyway.”
“I know it’s dangerous. I can say no to certain things they want me to do, though. You said so. And once I join and you can tell me everything, maybe I won’t feel so confused ...”
He released me, pushing a finger to his eyebrow and smoothing it out. “That’s not how it works.”
“What do you mean? Why not?”
He sighed, his eyes lifted, meeting mine. “What’s the first rule of the Academy? Do you know it? Has anyone told you yet?”
I recalled Mr. Blackbourne’s words. “Trust your family.”
He nodded. “Why do you think we could tell you the first rule without you actually being in the Academy?”
I blinked at him. “I don’t know.”
“Sang, you can’t depend on joining the Academy to be the answer to what you want, because you can’t join the Academy until you do exactly that. You can’t join until you trust us.”
My lips parted at this revelation. My breath escaped me. It was what I couldn’t imagine. How was it possible to trust someone when they can’t trust you with their deep secrets? I was so sure this was the answer. “Isn’t there any way ...”
“No,” he said. He frowned softly. “They’ll test you, Sang. They’ll know if you try to fake it. We’ll know, and we can’t lie. Besides, it’s the wrong reason to join.” His hand found mine again, he squeezed it. “And I still don’t want you to.”
“Kota ...”
He tugged at my hand, drawing back my attention. His eyes bore down on me as commanding as his voice now. “And it isn’t because I’m thinking about girlfriends or whatever Mr. Blackbourne told you. The Academy doesn’t want a girl in all male groups because outside relationships become strained. That’s not really a problem for me.”
His surety wrestled my breath away. “What do you mean?”
A half smile played on the corner of his mouth. He drew himself up, nudging me until my back was against the bean bag chair. He hovered over me, his face close, his nose a breath away from mine. “Because the only girl I’m interested in knows too much for her own good and wants in.”
Before I could respond, his nose dropped down on top of mine. He nudged it in that gentle way. I sensed his lips hovering over mine. My heart pounded, sure he’d kiss me. I waited.
Only he didn’t. He did something unexpected and better.
His nose traced over the side of my nose, across my cheek. Hovering right there. So close. Where his nose trailed, my heart followed, swallowing me up in a wave of feelings I never knew before.
His nose tucked around the crest of my ear. “Sang,” he whispered. His hand sought out mine, holding the palm.
“Kota,” I breathed out. I squeezed his hand back.
“Please don’t try,” he begged. His nose slipped behind my ear, trailing down to the soft flesh at my neck. “Don’t look to join the Academy.”
“Why?”
His breath fell against my neck as he hovered. “I can’t lose you again, Sang.” He tugged my hand, drawing it around his neck. My other arm slipped up, until I was hugging him. His nose traced along my jawline. “You’re too close now. I don’t want you nearby when there’s a fight at school, or making deals with Hendricks, or anything else we have to do.”
“You’re afraid?”
He sucked in a breath, drawing himself back. “You’re not?”
I shook my head slowly. “No.”
He frowned, dropping his head against the corner at my neck and shoulder. His nose trailed against my skin. “Then I have to be. Someone has to. So yes, I am scared. With you, I’m on the edge of my seat all the time. I don’t want you hurt. I don’t want you to die, like you almost did today.”
My head tilted back, my skin tingling against the touch of his nose along my neck. The words passed from my lips before I realized my full meaning. “But I didn’t die. Because of you. You were there.”
“What happens next time? What happens when I’m not?”
“We can’t worry about things that might happen.”
He drew up and shifted until he was on his side next to me. He collected my hand, pulling it toward his face. “If you are in the Academy, there’s always something dangerous that needs to be done. If you stay out ...”
“Things could happen all the time,” I said. “They happen now and I’m not in it at all.”
His lips tightened. “I know. I’m trying.”
“You can’t lock me in a closet, Kota.”
His eyes flashed at me. “How can you say that?”
I sighed. “My mother told me for years I shouldn’t go outside or leave my room because she was afraid of all those bad things out there. She believed the only place that you can be safe was to lock yourself away from everything and everyone. Maybe she had different reasons for doing so than she told me, but I spent a lifetime resisting the idea." I pulled my hand from his, pushing my fingers across his cheek, realizing then that I’d never done that before. I’d never touched them the way they did me. The sensation was unreal. “But there you were the first time you met me, walking with me in the rain, and proving her wrong. I don’t have to be afraid. You’re right. North is right. I need to trust you more. I’ll work on it. I’m fighting against years of habit of fending for myself and everything she told me that could happen to me. I’m sorry about that. But if you’re afraid for me, if you’re trying to keep me safe, how long will it be before you’re so scared that I’m tied up in your closet?”
“I wouldn’t do that to you,” he seethed. He pushed his palm against mine at his cheek. “Sang, I’ll never.”
“I know,” I said. “You won’t hurt me, but how far are you going to go to keep me safe? When is it ever enough? Are you going to destroy every sawdust pile we come across? Are you going to prevent me from
talking to any principal or teacher ever again?”
“It doesn’t have to be like that,” he said. He shifted my hand until the tip of my forefinger touched his lower lip. “I don’t mean to hide you. I just want to stop ...”
“Everything?” I asked.
He slid my finger tip across his lip. “I won’t keep you from everything. I’ll look out for you, but I can’t be everywhere. There’s a difference between trouble finding you and you diving head in after it. If it takes me admitting to being afraid to let you into the Academy, and if I have to vote you out if you tried, I will. If that’s what it takes, Sang, I’ll keep you safe and I’ll be scared for both of us, so you won’t have to feel that way ever again.”
“Kota,” I breathed out, unsure of how to respond. He seemed so convinced, so sure that this was the right move. I still wasn’t sure, but not trusting his answer also meant I didn’t trust him, and not trusting meant no Academy anyway.
One day, I thought, I’d change his mind.
It wouldn’t happen tonight. I had to show him he didn’t have to be afraid for me.