“Stop,” I groan, my eyes pinching shut, but I don’t know if I’m talking to her or to the voice. “Please, just stop.”
Her hand falls away.
We stand there in the space between the bed and the window, neither of us moving, neither of us speaking. The sound of our breath fills the room, I can hear her heart beating so fast, like she’s afraid, or maybe that’s my own heart because I’m afraid too.
Then I hear something outside her door, the elevator opening somewhere down the hall. Followed by footsteps gettingcloser and closer. Mia is frowning at me, unable to hear what I hear, unable to know that someone is coming.
There’s a knock at the door.
Mia goes still.
I nod at her as if to say,you better answer that.
Mia crosses to the door and checks the peephole, while I stand back to the side and out of direct view.
All the color drains from her face and I already know who it is.
“It’s Cal,” she whispers.
Despite somehow knowing—smelling testosterone and his Armani cologne from the other side of the door, hearing his steady heartbeat—his name detonates in my chest like a grenade.
He came back. He came back to her.
“Open it,” I say. My voice doesn’t sound like mine anymore. It isn’t mine anymore.
Mia doesn’t move, stares at me with those big eyes of hers. She shakes her head.
“Open the door, Mia,” I say quietly. “Or I will.”
Seconds pass. He knocks again.
I make a slight movement for the door but she puts her hand on the handle and quickly opens it.
Cal stands in the hallway, a small jewelry box of all fucking things in his hand. His eyes find Mia first—relief flooding his features, then confusion at her expression—and then they slide past her to me.
The relief vanishes.
“Cal, what are you doing back here?” Mia asks, her voice steady despite her racing heartbeat.
“Uh sorry, I needed to give you these, uh…” he says, holding out the box, his eyes darting back and forth between me and Mia.
Before Mia can say anything, I cross the room and snatch the jewelry box from his hands and open them.
It’s a pair of earrings.
And just like that, something inside me lurches, rushing out cold and black, snaking over my entire body from the inside out until I can’t hear straight, can’t see straight, can’t think straight. All I feel is hate. All I feel is angry.
All I know is that I must do what I am told to do.
That box inside me has finally been opened.
CHAPTER 40
MIA
I knowthe exact moment Nate leaves his body.
One second, he’s standing there holding Cal’s jewelry box, which hold my new comms in it, his jaw tight, his eyes blazing with that jealous fury I’ve been trying to talk him down from. And then something changes. The muscles in his face go slack. The light behind his eyes dims and then winks out entirely, like someone blew out a candle.
