He dropped to his knees right there on the ugly motel carpet, his hands half-raised, like any wrong move might shatter me. I had never seen him like that.
“What are you doing?” he whispered.
“I want you to feel what it’s like… being at the mercy of something you love.”
He was crying. Not sobbing, but I saw the wet gleam slip past his lashes. He was breaking open for me, and it still hurt more than everything else. The tips of his raised fingers quivered.
“Please,” he whispered again, “I don’t know how to protect you without becoming the thing you’re scared of. I don’t know how to stop.”
I fell to my knees in front of him, and the gun slipped from my fingers. It thudded to the floor. I couldn’t breathe. He crawled toward me, gently, like I was made of glass and thorns. His arms wrapped around me hesitantly at first, then it was crushing. My body shook inside his and I buried my face into him as I sobbed so hard that I felt like I was dying.
He said nothing, but in the silence that followed, I heard everything I needed to.
Chapter thirty-six
Halo
“Love Like a Loaded Gun”
Shewasstillshakingin my arms, and the gun was still on the floor between us. I held her like she might disappear.
“I’m sorry,” I said again, for the fifth time, like it would matter now. They were useless words.
She was stiff in my arms, and I didn’t know if she was going to collapse against me or shove me off her. I wouldn’t have fought it either way. I hadn’t moved from where I dropped to my knees when she put the gun to her head. I’d begged her to stop. I’dbegged.I had never knelt before any man or god, but I would have given up everything to make sure she didn’t pull that trigger.
That was the moment I broke: the moment I realized how fast it could all be gone, and not because of an enemy. Because of me.
“I should’ve told you the truth from the start,” I said, voice cracking, “but if I did, you’d run. And if you ran, you’d be dead.”
“You killed her,” she said. Her voice was shaking now, not with fear, but with grief and rage.
“She was—” I stopped.Don’t say it, don’t try to justify it. Don’t cheapen it. Don’t make it worse. “She wasn’t you. That’s all that mattered to me.”
Eden flinched, turning her face away like the words were a physical blow.
“I thought if I gave him a body, I could buy time to end this. To take out everyone who knew your name before he ever got close.”
“And what then?” she asked, still not looking at me. “Were you ever going to tell me?”
“I don’t know.” My voice came out like sand. “I wanted to. But every time I looked at you, all I could think about was what you’d say when you found out. How you’d look at me.”
She turned slowly, her eyes landing on me like a blade. “You killed a girl who looked like me. Sent photos of her, let that man believe she was me. Someone loved her, someone is missing her. Someone is lying awake right now, trying to understand why someone would kill her like that.”
She stood and walked a few feet away, arms wrapped around her midsection like she was trying to hold herself together. I had noticed her do it before when she was fraying, nervous, unsure.
“Do you even remember her name?” she asked. “Or did she stop being a person the second you saw a way out?”
I stood, finally, knees burning from how long I’d been on the floor. My chest felt hollow and heavy. “No,” I said. “I didn’t ask her name.”
Eden nodded slowly, like she already knew. Like that was what she needed to hear to seal whatever decision she was making. “She was just another body.”
“No,” I said fiercely. “She was a cost I was willing to pay, and I will carry her.”
She turned back to me, fire in her eyes. “You think carrying it makes it better?”
Her anger broke, and her knees buckled a little. I moved without thinking, ready to catch her, but she held up a hand. “Don’t touch me.”
I stopped dead.
