Jack leans in closer, resting both of his arms on my bed. His eyes catch mine, and we stay like that for a while, just staring at each other. Breathing together.
Even exhausted and beaten down, Jack is still beautiful. His dark lashes are too long, and his jawline is ridiculous. I raise my hand, ignoring the pins and needles that prickle all the way along my arm at the movement, and brush my fingers lightly along that perfectly cut jaw. There’s blond stubble on his face that feels unnaturally rough against my mutated skin.
I’ve touched him like this before, but the difference is stark and undeniable, like everything’s been hewn into sharper focus, my senses crystal clear and brand new as if I’m discovering touch for the first time all over again.
Jack leans into my fingers, letting me cup his face with one hand and softly brush my thumb over his cheek. He shivers when I move my hand into his tousled hair and begin lightly carding my fingers through it, trying to make sense of the madness. A light groan of approval tumbles from his mouth, seeming to have been drawn from some great pit of despair and grief buried deep inside him.
“You tried to leave me,” he accuses, outraged that I woulddare.
It makes me want to laugh because I could never have expected anything else. That’s been Jack ever since we met. Intractably protective. Feral in his desires. My heart squeezes so tightly in my chest it feels close to bursting, the monitor’s beeping picking up speed.
My memories of what happened at the house are out of focus and fragmented, but I vividly remember telling Jack that I lovehim. It plays out in my head like a carefully preserved piece of film from decades ago.
“Told you to—” I have to stop halfway through the sentence because my throat still aches, like I spent hours choking back razor blades, but I’m able to push on after a few steadying swallows of spit. “Told you not to let me run from you.”
In the midst of sex, I begged for him to snare me, like a wild animal caught in a vicious trap. It may have been said in the heat of the moment, but I meant it all the same.
Jack’s expression darkens, taking on a decidedly dangerous edge. He leans in even closer to me and presses a large hand to my ribs, above where my heart rests caged behind them. He looks me with an unrepentantly arrogant possessiveness, his hand clenching like he wants to punch through my chest and curl his fingers around the clump of bloodied, pulsing tissue that I offered up to him.
“This is mine,” he tells me in a low, warning growl. “You don’t get to treat something that belongs to me with the disrespect and lack of care that you did that night. If you ever put yourself at risk like that again, I’ll tie you up and lock you in a tower so you can live the life of a fucking fairy tale princess that you’ve always dreamed of, got it?”
A torrent of heat rages through me. He looks so fucking serious about it; I can’t do anything but nod in agreement, croaking a painful, “Okay, babe.” Then, “I’m sorry.”
Jack’s eyes narrow into furious, pale-green slits. “Fuck you and your sorry,” he sneers. “I wouldn’t trust your sorry to carry scissors.”
That gets an amused snort out of me, which only seems to incense Jack further.
“You’re lucky we’re in medical right now,” he tells me, “because otherwise I’d be smacking the shit out of you.”
“Liar.” I grin at him, teasing. “I’m all special and super now. Could take you, probably.”
Jack pulls a face at the grating scratch of my voice. “Oh, so intimidating, froggy.”
I attempt to hum thoughtfully, but I’m pretty sure it comes out in a deflated wheeze instead. “Maybe that’s my power.”
Jack scowls. “What, sounding like an asthmatic frog?”
“Being part frog,” I explain. “With froggy powers or whatever. Like Spider-Man, but sexier.”
“Frog-Man. Yes, incredible,” he proclaims drolly. “The villains will run in terror from such a name.”
I push the tip of my tongue out and bite it between my teeth, choosing not to respond to his lack of faith in my future career as Frog-Man, the tongue-slinging wonder.
Unbidden, the memories of what went down in my kitchen become less fuzzed out as the drugs my brain has been doused with wear off a little more. Amongst all the blood, fear, and angst-fuelled stupidity, the image of Jack taking three bullets to the chest sticks out like a scream ripping through silence.
I snatch my fingers out of Jack’s hair and give the back of his head a harsh slap. When he frowns at me for my act of wonton violence, I slap him again, exclaiming, “You got shot!”
His brows furrow, nonplussed. “Why does that equal you hitting me?”
“Youletyourself get shot!” I correct myself, glaring at him accusingly.
Jack has the actual audacity to roll his eyes at me. “They were tranq-bullets,” he says as if that’s supposed to negate the fact he allowed himself to be shot three times, point-blank in the chest. It’s not like he knew they were going to be tranq-bullets in the moment.
At the revelation that Dan’s gun was filled with nonlethal ammunition, I take a moment to recalibrate my understandingof Dan’s motives for what he did. “So, your brother never meant to hurt me.”
“Are you for real?” Jack demands, incredulous, getting himself all worked up for some reason. “That’swhat you’re taking away from what happened?”
Ignoring Jack’s unnecessary hysterics, I push for more about Dan. “Where is he? Is he alright?”
