The words land in the part of me that’s been whispering the same thing since the blue flooded back into those silver eyes.
You let your guard down. You followed your feelings instead of your brain. This is what happens when you stop being careful.
I can’t process those feelings. Not yet. So, I focus on the facts instead.
“You stopped when I told you to,” I say, since it’s true, and that’s the most important fact I can see right now.
“And what if your voice didn’t reach me?” He’s shaking now, as if he wanted me to tell him I hate him and he’s angryat me that I didn’t. “What if I couldn’t come back?”
“I did reach you,” I tell him. “And you did come back.”
He stares at me like he wants to believe that matters. Then he looks away again, and whatever door was open between us closes.
“We need to leave,” he says softly. “Fire travel will be fastest, and safer than crossing the causeway now that the tide’s rising. I don’t always succeed with taking people with me—I usually don’t, if I’m being honest—but for you, I will. If that’s okay, of course.”
“That’s fine.”
“I’ll need to touch your hand.” He says it like a warning, like even that small contact might break him.
“I know.”
He stays there for a few seconds, looking at me as if I’m already lost to him. “I’m sorry for what I almost…” He shakes his head slowly, as if he can’t make sense of who he is or what just happened. “If you want to report me to the Council, I won’t stop you. Whatever you need to feel safe, I’ll do it.”
“Can we just go back? Please?”
“Okay.” He extends his hand, his palm up and unsteady. “I’ll bring you to your room, so no one sees you come in.”
I move to him and take his hand without processing the touch, and then golden fire erupts around us, the world reforming a few seconds later.
The moment we’re there, I pull my hand out of his and step back.
He flinches as if I burned him, then gets himself together enough to speak.
“If you never want to speak to me again, I understand. Youshouldn’twant to speak to me again. I just…” He swallows hard. “The memories twist me into the worst version of myself. They’ve never taken over like that, but that doesn’t matter, because I should never have let it get that far in the first place.”
I wrap my arms around myself, because I don’t know what I feel yet. My body says one thing, logic says another, and for the first time in my life, I listened to my heart over both of them, and I have no idea which part of me was right.
“I understand,” I say, because on some level, I do.
I know what it’s like to feel broken.
Tobias’s version of broken is just a very, very different type than mine is.
“Get some sleep,” he says, taking another step back. “And Avery?”
“What?”
“Thank you.” The word comes out fractured. “For stopping me.”
Golden fire flares around him, and before I can respond, he’s gone.
I sit down on my bed, my body aching, my mind spinning. The space where he stood is empty and cold. The ghost of his hands is on my skin, and I press my fingers against the places he touched, wishing I could keep it and scrub it away at the same time.
I should have stopped him earlier. I felt the moment the vampire memories took over, when his grip changed and the rhythm turned brutal.
But I didn’t, and now, I’ve given him a reason to hate himself forever.
20
