“The power,” I admit quietly. “It felt… fun at first.” I grimace. “I know. I know. It’s fucked up. I’m so fucked up.”
Sisk shakes her head slowly, her grip on my hand tightening. “No.”
“I am.”
“You were young,” she says.
“Still.”
“You were trying to survive,” she insists.
She pulls her legs up onto the couch, tucking them under her. “It’s really been all my fault.”
I look up at her, my entire world shifts. “No.”
“If it weren’t for me,” she says, her voice cracking, “you wouldn’t have obeyed it.”
“That’s not?—”
“You only did it because of me.”
“Sisk—”
“I dragged you there,” she says, her voice rising with desperation. “I pushed you into that mess.”
“No,” I say firmly, my voice leaving no room for argument.
“Yes.”
“No.”
She looks at me stubbornly.
“You were a victim,” I say quietly.
Her lips part, a silent protest dying on them.
“I’d do it all over again for you,” I admit, the confession tearing out of me. “For this, for us. Every single fucked-up time.”
She comes closer and before I can stop it, my eyes burn. A single, hot tear slips down my cheek. I wipe it away, rough and angry, but it’s too late.She’s never seen that. Never seen me break.
“Jax…”
“Don’t,” I growl and suddenly I’m laughing, a horrible, breathless sound. “Fuck,” I curse, my head in my hands. “Fuuuuck.”
She moves, climbing onto my lap. Her arms wrap around my neck, her hands cradling my face, forcing me to look at her. “You’re not a monster,” she whispers, her lips pressing against the wet track on my cheek. “Not a villain. Do you hear me?”
Another tear escapes, and she kisses that one away too. “I love you.”
I pull her closer, burying my face in her hair, breathing her in. “I love you too,” I cry into her neck.
All those years of pain finally catch up to me at once. The fear. The guilt. The exhaustion. Every full moon. Every body. Every night spent wondering if I was finally becoming the monster everyone thought I was.Everyone but her.
I don’t think she realizes what not running means. That every time she chooses to stay, she's stitching together pieces of me I thought were gone for good.
For a while we just sit there like that. A fucking mess. Laughing a little and crying a little.Two broken people in a city that’s trying to eat us alive.
Eventually she leans back slightly, still on my lap. “What are we going to do, Jax?”
