Each second this goes on, the harder it is to keep my rage in. It has only worsened since I saw his face again. “You don’t get to trap me here.”
“I’m not trapping you,” he says, leaning in enough that I have to tilt my head back to keep eye contact. “I’m stopping you from making a stupid decision.”
I hate that I notice the height difference between us now, and I hate how it heightens a new kind of awareness in me.
“I’m not your responsibility, so stop acting like I am,” I grit, trying to push against him despite how he’s more like a wall around me.
Clearly annoyed by all of this, Zane takes a slow, long-suffering breath. “I’m trying to keep you alive long enough for me to figure out what happens next, but you can’t seem to see decency when it’s right in your face.”
“You put us both in this position,” I fire back, letting the words spill out now, fueled by anger and something deep enough for me to push aside for now. “You walked into that place, made that choice, and now suddenly I’m the problem. I never asked for any of this.”
“I know you didn’t, and I never said you were a problem.”
“You didn’t have to,” I mutter as I shove at him again, but this time, he catches my wrist, and I hesitate.
The contact sends a jolt through me without warning, and my breath catches before I can stop it.
His grip isn’t rough, but it’s firm and deliberate, as if he has reached the end of his limit.
“Stop,” Zane says, his voice lower now and brimming with the control he can’t help but try to exude.
I glare at him, wishing it would burn enough to get him to drop it. “Let go.”
“Not until you calm down.”
“I am calm.”
His brow lifts slightly, like he’s skeptical. “Could’ve fooled me.”
“Maybe I’d be calmer if you let go and stepped back,” I tell him, anger surging in inconsistent waves as it tangles with something else now…Something I don’t like, don’t understand, and don’t want.
That awareness of him and of how close he is eats away at me, trying to weaken my defenses. Without my permission, my body reacts despite everything screaming at me to pull away and to make sure he never has the chance to get this close again.
I hate it.
“I’m not staying here,” I say, forcing the words out through clenched teeth and trying to convince myself it’s an inevitable truth, like speaking it into existence.
“For now, you are.”
My heart pounds harder and faster. Rather than fear, something much worse threatens my resolve. It takes every ounce of strength I have to not fold under the pressure and to keep my mind from tricking me into assuming any part of the old Zane still exists.
“Why do you even care?” I demand, not caring how loud I ask.
For a second, his expression shifts into something painfully real, and for all of his stoicism, even he can’t hide it.
“I told you,” he says quietly. “I wanted to help, and this is me helping, like it or not.”
I search his face, looking for the lie, for the angle, or the strategy, but all I see is that same steady certainty wrapped up in the complete faith he has in himself. That confidence unsettles me more than anything else.
“That’s not enough,” I mumble, struggling to keep up the fight despite needing to.
“It is for me.”
More heavy, complicated silence lingers, and I swallow hard to force myself into focusing on what matters, not on the heat moving through his palm and into my skin.
His grip loosens slightly, like he’s trying to be careful with me, but he doesn’t let go.
Something uncomfortable wavers inside me. “I don’t need saving, Zane.”
