VAIN | Inside the Universe

Chapter Twenty Seven • The Body of Apostasy

The first thing I noticed upon waking up was that I wanted to die.

I spent the night with some kind of triumphant feeling I forced down my throat, but when the light shot through the windows and told me to go fuck myself, I was a little less sure. Usually, I'm able to swallow it.

But that was not the only difference the morning brought. Now that I don't have to play community coordinator with our beloved, rightful, honest-to-goodness King back, my schedule has been freed up. It seems Kahlil is well aware of that fact because he was at my door two hours early to drop off the sweetest, but not at all apologetic, 'just-in-case-you-decide-to-do-something-stupid-I'm-here-to-stop-you' smile.

I swung the door right back into his face. "Let me die here. Alone."

"I can't even if I wanted to," he sighed, following my back that has since turned to him as if I could forget his presence. Taking a grape into his own mouth from the breakfast Kari left a few minutes ago, he sinks into the chair at the foot of my bed, making himself at home. "If you die under my watch, they will skin me alive," he counters almost absentmindedly, "And I don't want to haunt this place with you. That's a damned eternity of tea and tequila that would drive me utterly mad."

He considers the silence for a moment, narrowing his eyes and stilling another grape just before his mouth. "Oh, wait."

When the hell did I start making people feel comfortable?

Deciding it's time to start hibernation and my complete isolation rather than entertain him, I crawl back into bed and pull the blanket up until it covers everything but my face. I suppose it would be nice to breathe, but it gives my eyes no choice but to stare at the ceiling above me in all it's elaborate, artful, decorative complexion.

Why does everything have to be so colorful? It exists for no other reason than to make things more difficult. And it hurts my fucking head.

Khalil didn't necessarily make an effort to hide the fact that he was watching me, but I really couldn't care. He was...actually concerned. I suppose I haven't done anything to exactly prove his feelings otherwise invalid, but I don't like that kind of attention. It's the kind that makes me want to run for the hills, and he knows that. Somehow with all that hidden wiseness that makes him so intriguing, he knows me a little better than I know myself, so fittingly he rarely ever lets me see that.

As if no time had passed at all, he stood abruptly and started to pour two cups of tea, brushing past the moment in my favor. I watched him make them out of the corner of my eye, though, just in case. Old habits die hard.

"The Allfather has called for a meeting this afternoon. There was an irregularity down at the bifrost last night. It's a possible security breach."

"Send my best wishes," I sigh straightly. "I hope someone invades and just takes us all out."

"Unfortunately, Miss military strategist, you have no choice but to attend." He hovers the cup over my comforter, waiting for me to take my hand out from underneath.

Of all things, I had to pick that. I could have said I was a painter, or a fisherman, or anyone who does something far outside the palace walls to where I would never have to think about seeing him again. Oh my god, I'm going to have to see him again.

"I'm sick."

He frowned. "That's physically impossible."

I knotted my eyebrows together and burrowed myself into my bed, giving myself only seconds of blissful denial before he ripped the covers off of me. "You're not like this. What do you want to do, go punch an infant or something?"