"Dammit—"
"Lower your voice, Javier."
Jax's father took a deep, unsteady breath. "I know my son, Malcolm. I know my son. And when he learns the truth, when he learns who she is, what she is, he'll make the right choice, no matter how difficult. He'll do what needs to be done. But I need to tell him before he's initiated. He needs to make this choice knowing all of the facts, or it will break him."
"I'm not in the habit of risking everything so a sixteen-year-old boy won't have his heart broken," her father responded softly, emotionless. "I've lost too much already."
"Not his heart, Malcolm. His soul."
"Souls?" Her father laughed darkly, scoffing. "Don't talk to me about souls. Mine broke a long time ago, on what was supposed to be the happiest day of my life, the day my daughter was born—the day her mother and I realized that the child we spent years trying to conceive, months planning for, a lifetime dreaming of, was a child who could destroy the entire world, was a child I would have to murder the very second she turned sixteen. Don't talk to me of souls, Javier. I don’t have one anymore."
Pandora gasped, body shaking as her entire life became clear in a single second. Why her father hated her. Why her mother took her own life. Why the adults always watched her with pity. Why they told their children to stay away. Why she was different. Why she never fit in.
Something about her power terrified them.
Something about what she was, what she'd always been.
Pandora stood and scrambled back up the steps, back toward her room. She had to get away, had to run, had to find Jax to warn him before it was too late.
In her haste, she tripped and slammed to the floor.
"What was that?" her father snapped.
"Nothing," Javier said, brushing it off, trying to focus on their conversation. "I'm telling him, Malcolm, with or without the order's permission. Punish me, do what you will, but he needs to know."
"Pandora!" her father shouted, ignoring Javier. "Come downstairs right now."
"They're at the tree house," Javier said, sighing heavily. "I saw them leave hours ago."
"Pandora!"
She didn’t care if he heard. She ran—back to her room, out the window. She jumped from the second floor and rolled against the soft grass, knowing her titan strength was enough to keep her from getting hurt. And then she sped away, wrapped in the shadows, racing through the forest.
The tree house was dark when she got there, no candles, no sign of Jax.
He's coming, she told herself. He's coming.
He'll choose me. He'll come. He will.
So she waited, hiding in the shadows, watching the trees nervously as her eyes darted to every moving shadow, every shifting light. Footsteps pounded on the dirt. Her heart lifted, eyes widening, breath stopped on a moment, listening, waiting.
But the footsteps were thunderous.
There were too many to be only Jax.
Pandora huddled in the shadows, watching from a distance as her father tore into the opening around the tree house, eyes sharp as he searched for her, trying to drag her back. Three trackers came with him, gazes focused, searching for any sign of her, using their powers to try to touch her soul. But they wouldn't. As long as she was careful to remain still and to not make a sound, no one would find her in the shadows. No one could except Jax, and he wasn't there.
Because he's being initiated.
The thought came sharp and swift, a knife in her chest, but she pushed it away.
No, he's biding his time, she reasoned silently. He'll be here soon. He'll come. He saw my father leave, knew I'd be better off hiding without him, and decided to wait until the coast was clear. He's coming. He's coming. He is.
Fifteen minutes later, her father gave up. Ten minutes after that, she heard the trackers finally slip away.
Crawling over leaves and sticks, she pulled herself to the tree house on sheer will alone, then stopped at the base, unable to find the strength to climb to the top to wait for Jax, instead collapsing against the ladder, using it as a backrest to stare into the woods, listening, hoping, waiting.
“He's coming,” she whispered.
He's coming, she thought again.
The rungs dug into the skin of her back, painful, but she didn’t care because it meant she could still feel something. Her heart was hollow, empty, as though it had been ripped from her body and left back in the space between their houses. She wondered if Jax would find it.
He's coming, she repeated, pulling her knees into her chest, rocking back and forth as quiet tears fell, thinking the words over and over again, a soundless whisper, a silent prayer.
He's coming.
He's coming.
Hours later, he came.
Pandora hardly noticed him at first, too tired, too delirious. His footsteps were soft, cautious, barely disturbing the sticks and leaves beneath his feet. He stopped fifteen feet away from the tree house, just at the edge of the clearing, one cheek bathed in moonlight, eyes still hidden in the shadows.
"Dory?" he whispered, soft and scratchy, voice one thread away from shredding completely. "They told me to find you. They told me…"
Jax stepped forward into the light.
And in that second, Pandora knew.
In that second, she couldn’t deny it any longer.
Because for the first time since they'd met, she gazed into his soft green eyes and didn’t recognize them. They were hollow, broken, so very far away, so much older than the boy he'd been a few hours ago, still living in the ease of ignorant bliss.
Now, he knew.
Knew more than she, probably.
She didn’t need to see his tattoo.
He'd been initiated.
He'd made his choice.
Pandora released the shadows wrapped tight around her body, returning to the world as she stood, staring at Jax, unable to speak, unable to feel anything besides the knife digging deep between her shoulder blades, the knife he put there.
He stepped back, cringing.
What am I?
The thought came painfully swift as Pandora stepped back, body molded to the ladder of the tree house, unable to retreat any farther. Jax watched, unable to step forward, unable to close the gap between them.
What am I? she asked again, too afraid to say the words out loud. What could I possibly be that my own father wants to kill me? That an entire town has been preparing for my death for sixteen years? That Jax, my best friend, my everything, would choose them over me?
Her hands trembled.
Her heart burned.
Her chin quivered.
And the longer Jax watched, the more she could see the war raging inside his head, the two sides of before and after, of the boy who loved her and the boy who now needed to see her dead.
Oh, god, what am I? she silently cried. What am I?
Jax took a deep breath, reaching his hand out, softening. But was it old Jax or new Jax? Was it the boy who loved her reaching out in comfort, trying to help, trying to apologize, trying to explain? Or was it the boy who needed to drag her back to her father, the boy who belonged to the order, the boy she didn’t recognize?
She would never know.
Because she ran.
The instant he stepped toward her, Pandora withdrew into the shadows and sprinted into the forest behind her, pumping her legs, mind racing faster than her feet could follow. She didn’t want to know any more, not about Jax, not about herself. She couldn’t take it, couldn’t survive it. She wasn't strong enough.
So she ran.
No plan. No place.
Just the urgent need to escape, to get away before the answers to the questions burning in the back of her mind swallowed her whole.
Jax didn’t follow.
He let her go.
He watched immobile as she raced away, watched immobile as the other titans finally caught up to him, asking where she was, where she'd gone, if he'd found her.
His silence was another choice.
But it was too little.
Too late.
Pandora kept running for hours, not stopping as the sun crept into the sky, as the forest turned to a flat plain, as the hunger in her belly ached to be satisfied. Her feet kept pounding, trying to outrace her mind, losing. It took a very long time for her enhanced titan strength to give out, but eventually it did when she tripped, nearly blind, unable to see through eyes blurred both by tears and exhaustion. She landed hard on the ground, unaware of the world around her, letting the sun burn into her cheeks, blazing hot at the height of midday. Her lids slipped closed, turning the world burnt orange before it faded entirely away as she sank into a deep, dark dream.
But she woke utterly alert under cover of night.
Eyes slipping wide, she sat up and quickly jumped to her feet.
Because somehow, she knew where to go.
A guardian angel had appeared to her in the middle of the night, a man with glowing blond hair, brighter than a halo, and eyes that watched her with adoration, concerned and full of love. The more awake she became, the more his image slipped away, sand between her fingers, pulled from her mind by a force beyond her control. But his sultry voice reverberated clear and smooth, murmuring a single word into her ear.
Pavia.
The name burned all her other thoughts away. Pavia. A vampire in Charleston, a vampire with the power to warp minds.
Find Pavia.
Erase this awful night and the knowledge it had brought.
Become a vampire.
Die before they had a chance to kill her and spend eternity outrunning fate before it had the chance to catch up.
Because if she could wait long enough, there was a light at the end of the tunnel—someone was waiting for her, a guardian angel, a man who would make her forget any other boy had ever even existed.
So Pandora ran.
And would keep running until he found her.
Chapter Twenty
Pandora's eyes flew open. Gasping as she sucked in air, she breathed into lungs that were warm and desperate for oxygen, desperate for their first hint of real life in four years.
Where was she?
What happened?
A girl leaned over, olive skin, lush wavy hair. "Are you okay? I'm so sorry."
Pandora sat up, blinking away the drowsiness still clinging to her limbs, the fog still hanging in her mind. "What happened?"
Someone touched her hand, a blonde girl. "My name is Kira. Do you remember me? Do you know where you are?"
Pandora licked her lips, her brows coming together as she glanced around the room, gaze roaming past the girls to the four boys huddled in the back. Three were facing away, shoving the fourth up against a wall, but he didn’t seem to be putting up a fight. He seemed limp, lifeless. Her gaze traveled up his sturdy frame, stopping on his eyes, those perfect seafoam eyes.
And just like that, she remembered.
She brought her hand to her mouth, catching the gasp as her eyes immediately filled with water, mouth quivering as she stared into Jax's eyes—Jax's traitorous eyes.
"You…" She trailed off, unable to speak.
He closed them tight, turning his face away, ashamed.
Pandora jumped to her feet. "I have to go."
Pavia stepped forward, reaching for her arm. Their eyes met, having an entire conversation in the span of a single second. This human girl had once been the vampire who had changed Pandora. She remembered now, remembered everything. How she'd found Pavia in Charleston, a desperate fifteen-year-old begging for help, begging to forget. And how Pavia had granted her wish, sinking her teeth into Pandora's neck, reliving that night with her as she locked the memories away, as she sealed them behind the wall of Pandora's vampirism, tucking them into the depths of her lost human soul. Pavia understood better than anyone else why Pandora was running, and why she needed to keep going.
"I'm sorry," Pavia said, voice unsteady and utterly sincere. "If I'd been here sooner, I could have stopped them. I would have. But we can still keep you safe. If you stay, we’ll protect you, we’ll—"
"It's okay," Pandora told her. "It’s not your fault." She paused, turning to Jax with words ready to cut deep. "It's better this way. I needed to remember. I needed the reminder that I'm on my own, that love is just a lie we tell ourselves, that there's no one on this earth I can trust."
Jax didn’t say anything. He met her eyes as a broken man.
"You can trust us," Kira said, jumping in, pulling Pandora's attention back to her. "Whatever is going on, we can help you."
"You can’t." Pandora shook her head. "They're coming. It might already be too late.”
"Who?"
"The titans," she answered, already reaching out for the shadows, relieved to know they hadn't abandoned her. They were still there, loyal. "And we both know that conduits aren’t strong enough to stop them."
"Dory," Jax rasped, finally finding his voice.
But she didn’t turn around, didn't look at him. She drew the shadows around herself, disappearing from sight as the conduits gasped in shock, eyes on the space where she had been.
"We'll be here if you need us," Kira called.
Pandora held on to those words as she raced away, feet pounding loud against the tiled floors, the steady slap of human weight and human feet that had the speed of a titan without the grace of a vampire. But it was more than that. Her body felt clunky and out of sorts, new and uncomfortable. She was fast, but not as fast. She could hear, but not as far. She could see, but in the distance, things were the tiniest bit blurrier than they had been before. And she was hungry, starving. Her breath came in short, shallow gasps, her lungs unused to exercise and exertion. Fighting off the sedative they'd given her, her body tried to remember what it felt like to pump true blood, to have a heart that beat constantly, a figure that warmed and sweat and was alive.
Her soul, though, was still ice.
Frozen. Frigid.
The rest of her burned, coming awake for the first time in four years, aching in a wonderfully human way, but deep in her heart, there was only frost.
The icy sting of betrayal.
Still fresh.
Growing colder and harder by the second.
I'm such an idiot, Pandora thought as she sprinted into the trees, on alert for the wall surrounding the town, ready to soar over it to freedom. Such an idiot for letting him weasel his way back into my heart, such an idiot for trusting him again, even for a second.
Stones appeared through the foliage, and Pandora leapt, gripping any grooves her fingers could find, using the titan strength and titan endurance she'd missed to carry her up and over the wall, foot by foot, until she was vaulting over the other side. She landed smooth against the ground, one inch closer to freedom.
She kept running.
Always running.
But her mind was on the other side of the wall, was with Jax, lingering over the last few words he'd said.
Remember that I love you.
I regret everything.
Digging her heels in, Pandora scowled, more determined than ever to get away.
Regret, my ass. Then why did you do this? Why did you have to make me want you again, have to dangle the dream before my eyes, when you knew it would eventually be ripped away? Wasn't once enough? Wasn't delivering me to the firing squad enough? What, you just had to break my heart again too?
As soon as she thought it, she realized it was true.
Her heart was shattered.
She was older, stronger, different.
But deep down, she was the same girl she had once been, vulnerable, utterly in love with Jax, and not nearly as immune to her emotions as she wanted to be. And remembering had gutted her, just as she predicted it would. Pieces of her littered the forest, a trail of tears and shards and broken bits she'd never get back, never be able to recover, never be able to put back together.
What am I? she thought suddenly.
That idea stung even deeper than Jax's betraya
l.
Days ago in that graveyard, Kira had asked why she was running, what she was running from. Myself, Pandora had answered, not even fully aware how true her words had been, how utterly inescapable they were.
Her father had been planning to murder her for sixteen years.
Her mother had killed herself to get away.
Her people had done nothing to intervene, had ostracized her to make the decision easier, had chosen death as her fate ever since the day of her birth.
And Jax.
In the end, he'd chosen that too.
And the very idea of his betrayal destroyed her, made her want to scream until her throat was raw, made her want to pound her fists into the ground until they bled, made her want to cry until there was nothing left. But it didn’t make her want to run.
What am I?
That was what she was running from.
What she'd always been running from.
But there was one problem with that. No matter how fast, how quick, how nimble, she couldn't outrun herself. Eventually, her mind would catch up. Eventually, the questions would find her. Eventually, the truth would snatch her.
But something else caught her first.
Pandora cried out as electricity pulsed through her body, sending a shock wave through her nerves, pulling her from the shadows and propelling her back into the light. Her body jerked, and she fell forward, face slamming against the dirt, head snapping to the side as the volts raged through her. Her body twitched, beyond her control, caught in the lightning crackling the air around her, the bolts zapping her skin, making her convulse. Her eyes closed in defeat as her body shook.
There was no denying what this was.
Bolters.
Titans with the power to create lightning. She'd been too loud with her steps, too obvious in her haste. She'd forgotten her body no longer had the featherlight swiftness of a vampire, but all the weight of titan life. They must have sensed her, heard her, even if they couldn't see her. And now, with the lightning shocking her system, she was a sitting duck, out in the open, no shadows, no place to hide.
Frost (Midnight Ice Book One) Page 22