“I’m doingmy job,”he spat, the words ragged, as if he were repeating something he’d been told. “I’m doing what I’m supposed to do.”
He yanked me upward by my arms, slamming my back against the tree. Bark dug into my shoulders. His fingers locked around my forearms like restraints.
“Why are you doing this?” I gasped, copper spilling over my tongue. “Jackson, why?”
His breath hit my face in harsh, irregular bursts. His eyes kept flicking—not just to me, but past me. To the dark. To the trees. To nothing. Like he was looking into a portal to another dimension.
“No, no,” he muttered, shaking his head once, sharply, likehe was correcting himself. “You’re asking the wrong question. You always ask the wrong fucking questions.”
“Then what’s the right one?” The words scraped my throat on the way out.
He smiled again.
“Who I’m doing thisfor,”he whispered. “You need to learn. You need to fucking learn.”
“Learn what?” I pushed, even as my chest tightened. “What did I do?”
His gaze snapped to mine, pupils almost swallowing the irises. For the briefest second, I saw a naked terror there.
“You fucked him!” he exploded, the word ripping out of him, going through the trees like a shot. “You gave him everything. You married him!”
Each accusation sounded rehearsed.
“You think he knows you?” His laugh came out jagged, too high, cracking in the middle. “He doesn’t see you, Mackenzie. Not like I do. He never has.”
Up close, the truth was impossible to miss.
The sweat beading along his hairline. A tiny muscle jumped in his cheek. The tremor in his fingers. His eyes kept darting to the side, to the tree line, to the sky. Someone was watching us.
This wasn’t just about me.
This was a performance.
“You’ve been watching us,” I said.
The words came out flat and heavy. A verdict.
His entire body jerked in a small, involuntary flinch. Then he straightened, forcing his shoulders back, rearranging his face into something like composure.
“Of course I have,” he murmured, and now his voice softened, almost reverent. “That’s the point. That’s… that’s the work.”
“The work,” I repeated, numb. “What work?”
“They picked me,” he said, barely breathing the words. “Outof everyone, they picked me. Because I see you. Because I see all of you. The lies. The pretending.”
His grip tightened on my arms, not in anger this time, but in excitement.
“You think it’s an accident?” His voice shook with a kind of wild pride. “That I’m here? That I know where you are, what you do, what you say when you think no one’s listening? This is bigger than you and him and your stupid little vows.” His lip curled.
Something icy opened in my chest.
“Jackson… who are ‘they’?” I asked.
His smile turned inward, distant, as if he was hearing someone else speak just behind his own thoughts.
“The one’s paying attention,” he whispered. “TheAlliance.The ones who actually give a shit about what’s rotting this place from the inside.”
The worldAlliancesat between us like a third presence.
