I clench my teeth to ward off that old, familiar siren song in my head. The paranoia that my father cursed me with. “Things have changed.”
“Nothing ever changes. Don’t you know that? Wake up! Before you get hurt! This can end only one of two ways, Ariel: You lose your life, or you lose your soul.”
Wind whips hair into my mouth. “Things change,” I say again. “He’s changed me. Let me change him, too.”
Kosti’s eyes glisten. He pulls me into a hug that feels, for the briefest moment, like old times. “Stubborn as your mother,” he mutters into my hair. “But so it goes. When it all goes to hell, though… call me. The tickets will be ready for you.”
I’m getting really sick of the on-the-nose metaphors.
As the stairwell door clicks shut behind me, I feel good about what I told Kosti. You’re wro
