I pushed the questions back hard. Focused on what actually mattered right now. Not the past I couldn’t remember, but the future I might not have if we didn’t get those codes. If I didn’t survive Geneva.
Getting those codes.
Surviving.
Clare.
Chapter 20
Clare
I sat in the kitchen, staring at coffee I couldn’t taste.
The evening light bled gray and cold through frost-covered windows. Somewhere in this massive empty school, Xavier was preparing to leave. Packing whatever minimal gear Hellhound had scrounged. Going over schematics with Havoc. Learning routes through a building his body remembered but his mind had forgotten.
Leaving tomorrow for Geneva.
Maybe not coming back.
My coffee had gone cold an hour ago. I hadn’t moved to reheat it.
Emma’s voice drifted through my head, quieter now since the confession. Still there. Always there. But softer.
You can’t save everyone, Clare.
“I know.”
But you’re going to try.
“Yeah.”
Even if it kills you.
I didn’t answer that one.
No life waiting for me beyond these walls. I’d left Boston and never glanced back. Changed cities. Changed hospitals. Changed everything except the guilt that followed me like a shadow I couldn’t outrun.
And now I’d left Xavier.
Hours ago. After he’d kissed me like a promise and I’d told him I needed space.
The devastation he’d tried to hide, defeat in the line of his shoulders, had been eating at me ever since.
What if he dies tomorrow thinking I don’t want him?
The thought squeezed my lungs.
I’d told him everything about Emma. Laid myself completely bare. Showed him the ugliest parts of my failure and waited for judgment that never came.
He’d looked at me like I counted.
Then trust me trusting you.
Those broken words, forced through damaged vocal cords that barely worked, because he needed me to understand.
And I’d left.
Excellent decision-making, Clare. Really stellar relationship management.
