you wouldn't be the first renegade to need somebody
Flora shakes her head almost immediately, the motion small but insistent against Kai's chest, her throat tightening so sharply it feels like it might close entirely before she can force anything through it. The words don’t come right away; they catch somewhere behind her ribs, snagged on the breath she tries to take, and when she finally inhales it hitches hard enough that she nearly chokes on it, her grip on him tightening without meaning to.
"I don’t—" she starts, but it fractures, her voice thinning out into nothing as her gaze flicks past him, quick and nervous, scanning the shifting lanternlight and deep shadows as though the Wildwood itself might be listening in, might twist her confession into something louder than she can bear. When her eyes come back to him they’re too bright, her face drained of warmth except for the sharp flush high in her cheeks and the vivid, almost startling blue of her gaze. "I don’t even know if anyone knows," she manages, quieter now, the words pressed close to him like they shouldn’t exist anywhere else, like letting them drift too far might make them real in a way she can’t take back.
Her lips part again, hesitation dragging at the edges of it, but she doesn’t stop this time. "Jack murdered Harper," she says, the sentence landing heavier than the storm pressing down around them, and for a heartbeat she falters, the next part catching on something raw before she forces it through anyway, softer but somehow worse for it. "For me...because he’d been mean to me."
"I don’t—" she starts, but it fractures, her voice thinning out into nothing as her gaze flicks past him, quick and nervous, scanning the shifting lanternlight and deep shadows as though the Wildwood itself might be listening in, might twist her confession into something louder than she can bear. When her eyes come back to him they’re too bright, her face drained of warmth except for the sharp flush high in her cheeks and the vivid, almost startling blue of her gaze. "I don’t even know if anyone knows," she manages, quieter now, the words pressed close to him like they shouldn’t exist anywhere else, like letting them drift too far might make them real in a way she can’t take back.
Her lips part again, hesitation dragging at the edges of it, but she doesn’t stop this time. "Jack murdered Harper," she says, the sentence landing heavier than the storm pressing down around them, and for a heartbeat she falters, the next part catching on something raw before she forces it through anyway, softer but somehow worse for it. "For me...because he’d been mean to me."
