“Getout!”
He left. Heat built up behind my eyes but I didn’t let the tears fall. I didn’t want to give Lochlan the satisfaction of knowing that I had cried over him.
For three full days,I paced my cell like a wild animal, fighting off the flashbacks to when I was in that trunk as a child. I was going to go insane here, I was sure of it. I’d been placed in solitary confinement, so I wasn’t able to see anyone besides the occasional guard who silently delivered my meals.
Anytime my legs grew numb from pacing, I would slump to the floor, my thoughts racing.
Before my arrest, Lochlan had managed to convince me that he genuinely cared about me. All the evidence had pointed that way. He had protected me during that fight in the street. He had run into a burning building to save me. He’d tended to me when I was injured and hadn’t revealed my secret to Roderick or Peter.
Big deal. So he didn’t tell two people, and yet the secret still managed to leak out to everyone else in the entire country.
I cringed as I thought about the time I’d gotten all dressed up and tried to look pretty for him. He had probably been laughing to himself that he’d reduced a dangerous bounty hunter to a pathetic, lovesick puppy.
I wanted so badly to hate him. I wanted so much to despise Lochlan and everything he’d done to hoodwink me, but even when I tried to wish ill on him, my heart kept refusing. Part of me hoped that Lochlan would come back to apologize, to grovel for my forgiveness and give me a thoroughly satisfactory explanation for his behavior, even though the rest of me hated that he’d lied to me for so long. Did I even know who Lochlan was, really? Roderick’s son, an undercover Nightsworn, my confidant… he wore too many hats for me to know what was real and what was fake.
My feelings were all so muddled up and confusing that I wished I could carve them out and cast them aside, never to be examined again. Being on my own might have gotten lonely at times, but at least it was manageable. The time I’d spent with Lochlan when I thought he loved me had felt like warm rays of sunshine after a lifetime of cloudy gray. But now, the lows were lower than before. I simply felt hollowed out and empty in his absence. The rejection and betrayal were a thousand times worse than my former loneliness had ever been.
On the fourth day, there came an unfamiliar rattling noise and Lochlan appeared with a ring of keys.
I glared at him, wishing my gaze would set him on fire.
“Don’t look at me like that,” Lochlan said. “I really do care.”
“You have a funny way of showing it.”
“I have someone I want you to meet,” Lochlan pressed. He fumbled with the keys, then paused. “If I let you out, will you try to fight?”
“No.”
“You won’t run? You’ll stay put?”
“Yes.”
He sighed and put his hand up above the cell door. “You’re lying again.”
“Why ask me questions if you already know the answers?”
“Jillian, I’m trying to help you. Please let me help.”
“I’ve had enough of your help. Your help landed me in this jail cell. What do you want?”
“Just to talk. That’s it.”
I continued to glare.
“Elvin reported to the Nightsworn?—”
“So he’s undercover too?” I interrupted.
Lochlan took a deep breath and looked both ways for guards, but no one else was in sight. Nevertheless, he still lowered his voice. “Yes. He reported that the Employer put a bounty out for you as Gil. I knew that if the other hunters got to you first, they might hurt you or even kill you.”
“When did you find out about this supposed bounty?”
“The night before the Syndicate was raided. I had the Nightsworn take Ambrose before he could tell anyone else, and I had Elvin make sure you weren’t inside the Syndicate before they came. I didn’t want you to go back to the Syndicate or the cottage, so I took you to the cabin to keep you safe.”
I let out a snort so ferocious that I was surprised snot didn’t fly out of my nostrils. “You left while I was sleeping to inform them you were preparing to turn me in, then made me think you just went to get me breakfast.”
Lochlan winced again. “I did. But it was for a good reason.”
