“Disgust?”
“You don’t sound very sure.”
“Fear.” Now Nox did. “What we did was so abnormal, I think it frightened them. At least at first. Later it became like a freak show.”
“They watched you?”
“They thought we didn’t know, but Koda always knew. He could feel us no matter how far away we were, and later on everyone in the building.”
Luca turned on his side, propping his shoulder against the door. “You don’t want to be with me because you’re afraid you’ll hurt me.”
“Yes.”
“And you’re afraid because you always hurt my brother.”
“Yes.” How could one word be filled with so much despair?
“But you didn’t hurt me.” In the van, even when Nox had been at the mercy of the Anubis, he hadn’t hurt Luca. At least not in any way that hadn’t felt good. “And it helped, didn’t it?”
Nox’s exhales were the only reply.
“You were able to get control again. You didn’t hurt those people, and you didn’t do anything to me I didn’t want.” Luca put a hand against the door and dragged his fingers along the grooves of the panels. “Nothing I didn’t enjoy.”
Luca waited. When Nox didn’t answer, he got to his knees and reached for the knob. He hesitated, not because he was afraid of Nox, but afraid of how he might react.
But if Luca didn’t open it, he’d never know. He turned the knob. Hinges squeaked. Nox sat with his head down and his shoulder against the doorjamb.
Luca mirrored Nox’s position on the other side.
“I trust you.” Luca almost touched Nox’s hand.
“Why?”
“I told you, being with you feels right. It feels like I’ve known you a lot longer than a few days.”
Nox looked at him.
“Does it feel like that to you?”
“I don’t know what I feel.”
“But there’s something.”
“Yes.”
“Did you ever feel things you couldn’t explain when you met Koda?”
Nox didn’t have to speak, the answer showed in his eyes.
“Were you afraid then? That you’d hurt him?”
Again silence. But the yes glittered in unshed tears.
Luca nodded. “Did he say anything?”
Nox’s Adam’s apple bobbed. “He told me—” He swallowed over and over. “—told me to let it happen.”