I crush my fingers together and drop my hand, leaving it in a fist on my thigh. She watches it for a moment, and I think she might touch me, ease the tension and frustration, but she doesn’t.

That only increases my irritation.

“You do that a lot, you know,” she says.

“What?”

“Rub your chest.”

Because you’re always worried, I want to snap.

“Do you have a rash?”

“I don’t have a rash.” At this point, I can’t tell if she’s joking with me, because everything she says comes out between gritted teeth and sounds hostile.

She doesn’t say anything for a long moment.

“What is Mr. Val in your society? Why was he chosen as my trainer?” she asks.

“He chose to train you,” I say. “Elites are the best among the Valryn.”

“And elites make the rules,” she says. It’s not a question. “Rules like humans and Valryn can’t be together.”

“Yes.” I pause, and now my insides feel twisted. “Who told you?”

“I guessed,” she says. “Jake said he was a secret. Why is that a rule?”

“Because our DNA—what makes you up and what makes me up—doesn’t mesh. We make monsters. Abominations.”

She shivers, and suddenly I wish I had a better way to explain this, but I don’t. I bite down hard on the inside of my cheek, hoping she doesn’t ask another question about abominations. This conversation won’t do anything to improve her opinion of me—or us.

“What happens to abominations?”

“A number of things,” I say, pausing so long, I’m not even sure I’ll finish explaining. “Sometimes they are killed. It depends on the severity of their deformity…if they can live with it. Some are placed in servitude for Compounds across the nation.”

I’m really just repeating something I’ve been told.

“Have you ever met an abomination?”

“No.”

“So you don’t know what one looks like? If they are actually… ‘deformed’ as you say.”

I don’t, and I say so.

“So how do you know there’s any truth to the claim that human and Valryn DNA doesn’t mix?”

I can’t answer that either.

“You obey this rule? Without evidence to support its truth?” she asks.

I open my mouth because I want to tell her no, I don’t obey that rule, because if she could hear the things I think about her, she’d know I don’t really care that she’s human, but no words come out.

“Why did you kiss me?” she asks, not looking at me.

I flex my fingers, crushing them into a fist. “Because…I wanted to.”

And I don’t regret it.

Even as I reiterate, much to my body’s complete disagreement, “Nothing good comes from a human and Valryn relationship.”

When we arrive at Anora’s house, she sits up in her seat. “Oh no.”