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I wished I was lying. I wished I could keep letting him believe that there was a perfect J out there somewhere.

“We both know I'm telling the truth.”

It was more of a hoarse whisper, almost choked out.

Quentin stared at me as if he were frozen in place, and I couldn't guess what would happen next, letting the tears flow freely as I felt ice spreading across the floor beneath me, hungry for anything it could overgrow with its sharp shards.

Quentin no longer looked me in the eyes. His gaze slid down to my belly.

“This...” He hesitated. “Baby...”

“...is yours,” I confessed without hesitation, and it took more strength than I had at that moment. “Deal with it or don't.” I stepped back and pulled my coat closed, crossing my arms protectively over my belly. “I'm going to keep it. And you won't be able to stop me.”

Where did I find the courage when all I wanted to do was collapse on the floor and cry?

I was losing him. Erik was slipping through my fingers at that very moment, but not like sand trickling through them, more like an endless band-aid that someone was slowly and painfully tearing off my wound, which had only just begun to heal.

“You said you were on the pill.”

I blinked.

“I was… But something went wrong. I think it was the Salma…”

My voice broke.

A twitch ran across his right eyebrow. His lips were pressed tightly together. The glazed layer in his eyes returned.

More tears escaped my eyes, more and more, more and more uncontrollably.

“You... you kept my own child from me...”

He stepped back.

“I thought you were human...” I justified myself and stepped toward him.

“And since you know the truth?” he asked, and I thought I could hear his pain.

The thread of my heart stretched tight, growing thinner and thinner...

“What would you do if you found out that the father of your child was an unpredictable Quatura who hates you just because you were born into the wrong family, who threatens you repeatedly, who makes it clear to you every day how little he trusts you, not to mention who experiments on you?”

I continued to walk toward him. He continued to back away. Every step he took tore at my heart, threatening to snap the thread.

It was as if he didn't recognize me, as if he couldn't find J anymore...

Shards cut into my heart.

And then I realized it.

J was going to die.

“If I had known you were J...”

He ran his fingers through his hair, messing it up, turned around, only to start pacing back and forth again.

He began to breathe loudly, frantically, as if in pain. And it was as if I could feel that ache in my own chest as my vision began to blur.

I blinked away more tears, letting them run down my face.