The girl spat. “If they didn’t want to lose their sword, they shouldn’t have been transporting it over our land! We had every right to claim it once it crossed onto our territory!”
“Someone is self-righteous,” I mumbled under my breath, and the girl looked like she would march right over and slap me.
“Fuck you!”
“If I went around fucking everyone who wanted me I’d never have time left for anything else, now, would I?”
“Sky,” Hunter coughed. He was blushing.
How had this even happened? I’d gone from worrying about how to pay rent or which canvas brand I preferred to trying to get back a stolen Faerie sword from a bunch of Werewolves, and what did I get for it? Wet boots and a headache and people who didn’t laugh at my clearly top-tier quips. Life owed me better than this, I thought. I owed me better than this.
Picture this: me, alone, painting. Heaven.
Reality: hungry and very annoyed and standing between a pissed off pubescent Werewolf girl and a boy who apparently had a degree in pushing my limits.
“Oh how far I’ve fallen,” I said, mostly to myself.
“I’m willing to pay for it,” Hunter said to her. I already knew that wouldn’t work—people desperate for money didn’t live in homes like this, on private land—so I wasn’t surprised when the girl shook her head.
“It isn’t for sale,” she said. “Now leave.”
“We’re not leaving without that sword,” he shot back. I felt his desperation and fury pulse through the bond, sparking white hot against my own irritation.
He was brimming with rage.
Whoa.
And then he was moving. He’d been standing a few feet behind me, but in seconds he was over there, in front of the girl, towering over her. A ball of flames erupted in his raised hand. I forced myself not to startle when the fire burst to life, and watched as Hunter brought the flames so close to her face that I could see them reflected in her eyes, even from nearly ten feet away. My body stepped forward of its own accord, ready to get between them.
No. Don’t break it up. You need that sword.
The girl froze, not moving, not speaking. Her eyes locked on his, wide with fear.
“You’re going to give us exactly what we want, or I’m going to light up this entire place like a damn Christmas tree. And I’ll start with you.”
He was lying. I knew it, could feel it, had to fight against myself not to expose it—but I was still afraid. Hunter wouldn’t hurt her, but the girl didn’t know that. I didn’t really feel overjoyed to stand here watching while she feared for her life. She was a fucking brat. But then, wasn’t I, too? Weren’t most teenagers? My mind screamed at me to speak up and tell him to back up, calm down, put out the flames—but I couldn’t speak. His rage pouring through the bond, combined with the insistent pain of the untruth, made it near impossible to form words.
I dug my nails into my palms and bit down hard on my bottom lip, trying not to explode. I wanted to expose the lie. I wanted to destroy this entire place. I wanted everything to stop.
No—that wasn’t me. That was him; everything he felt, pouring through to me.
And if it was powerful enough to consume someone else then it was powerful enough to make him do something he shouldn’t.
Hunter was ruled by his emotions—whatever he felt pushing everything else out, turning the world into a pinpoint. He wasn’t thinking, only acting. Clouded judgement and the strength of a god; a lethal combination, if ever there was one.
I would step in if anything got out of hand.
“Fine! Fine, whatever you want, just don’t!” The flames danced menacingly close to her skin. He wasn’t holding her in place, but she looked hesitant to move away from him, as if any shift in her weight could provoke him into turning her into a living bonfire.
“Where is the sword?”
“In the house!”
He grunted. “Is anyone else in there?”
“No. I’m home alone.” She was telling the truth—grudgingly—and I knew Hunter knew it, too. He could access my ability as easily as I could get at his telekinesis at this point, even if the others eluded me.
I remembered being mugged, walking home from Kent’s place in the West Side, one night late this fall. Remembered the gleam of a knife in the light and the hollow feeling in every limb when I handed the asshole, who actually hadn’t been lying when he threatened to kill me, my wallet and cash.
The idea that she might be feeling that now made something dark and hideous turn in my gut. I felt as if I’d rolled in mud.
“Go and get it.” He said. “Try to call for help and I set the house on fire.”
“Hunter,” I warned.
“Shut up.”
It was another lie, but one that made me wince in disgust—and not from the pain of it. The Werewolf girl stepped back once, twice. She glared at him the entire time. A tear fell from her eye and she wiped it away stubbornly. Once she seemed sure he wasn’t going to let her have it while her back was turned, the girl spun around and bolted for the house.
Watching her run up the stairs of the wooden porch and through a set of sliding glass doors, I wished we’d never come here. Never gone to the court.
It was bad enough that the air smelled like wet dog, but Hunter was about to lose his shit.
“You lying motherfucker.” I spat on the ground. “You weren’t going to hurt her. Or burn the place. And if you tell me to shut up one more time—
“Shut up.”
As soon as I’d pointed out the lies, the weight of them fell off of my shoulders. I could finally breathe again, but that was the last thing I wanted to do. What I needed was break something.
“We could have gotten it out of her another way, Hunter! She looked ready to piss herself.”
This just wasn’t like him.
He rocked the whole callous bad boy image, yes.
But after spending nearly four days chained to his side, I knew him well enough to tell he wasn’t actually a dick. Often. This, though? There was an ugly, harsh gleam in his eye even when he turned to me.
“You knew what we came here for!” he defended himself. “We were prepared to fight, and now we won’t have to. You should be happy.”
“Oh, should I?”
“Why wouldn’t you?” he snapped. “As usual, I’m doing all of the work, and soon you won’t have to look at me anymore. You’re getting everything you wanted.”
“Where is this coming from?”
Hunter scoffed and looked away, shaking his head. “You’re so fucking oblivious.”
And you’re so fucking frustrating.
“Even after. . . .” He cut himself off, shook his head. “Never mind, it’s not worth it.”
I felt his emotion surge through our connection. It wasn’t just the girl he was mad at. It was me and the world and everything that had happened today, or ever. Like some kind of levy had broken inside of him and unleashed a flood of intense rage. Beneath it, pain. He shoved one hand into his pocket while twisting flames around the fingers of his other. I watched the fire dart over the back of his hand and encircle his wrist like a bracelet before twirling back around his thumb and up into his palm.
I could feel his rage flowing into me through the bond, aggravating my own. My hands shook with the weight of it, and I felt like I would break apart. It didn’t help that I was already annoyed myself.
You got yourself into this. Deal with it.
All this power swirling around us, through us, sparking like an electric shock, was too much to deny. Too much to control. It was like a chain locking us to each other. We couldn’t fight it. I didn’t even want to.
All that was left to do was give into it.
“So that’s it?” I spread my arms wide. “I’m not a mind reader, so if you have something to say to me you should just say it, Hunter. Say it, or quit being such a little bitch.”
He turned on me so fast I threw my hands up in defense, sure he would hit me
. A leftover side effect of growing up under the same roof as Melissa.
He winced, but the sympathy was gone as quickly as it came.
“You know what? This is you. You don’t understand this world. You have no idea what it takes to survive here, or how to act. This is how things work, Sky. This is how you get what you want. You have to be strong. You’re the one that wanted to break the bond in the first place. So here we fucking are, doing just that. If you don’t like the way its done, well, tough luck. Be careful what you wish for, huh?”
I froze. I was the one that wanted to break the bond?
Something fell into place, and I tried to shove it back down but couldn’t. I didn’t want to realize this, but it was too late to unsee it. Or maybe I already had realized it, and I’d just been trying to pretend I didn’t know.
The way Hunter was so willing to give into the attraction between us, how he’d been so sullen over my disappearing act after that first time. The way he’d been more than happy to let me use him as a distraction when I was falling to pieces the other night—he was always so much softer than I wanted him to be, eyes lingering on me as I walked through a room like he had to know where I was at all times to feel at ease.
I knew the guy liked me, but this. . . ?
He cared about me, even more than I’d let myself see. And I’d only fanned the flames, because, as I’ve clearly demonstrated this far, I was a damn idiot.
I’d thought that we both felt the same way about our situation: there was an attraction between us, a strong one, a spark of connection—the bond couldn’t have formed without one—but we couldn’t give into it. Couldn’t entertain the idea of just chasing after it.
I had been wrong. I had been so, so wrong.
For a second there I’d conned myself into thinking he was just as damaged as I was, or just been too lazy to try and keep in mind that other people weren’t as fucked up as me.
Not everyone is afraid of love, Sky. Riley had said once. Looking at me intensely as if she could press the meaning of her words into my brain through sheer willpower. Don’t you think there’s a reason for that?
Yeah, I told her, they’re all deluded.
The problem with love is this: It dies. And when it does, you die with it.
Shock rippled through me, and I saw the moment Hunter felt it too, through the bond. His anger faltered for just a second.
“Sky—”
“Oh my God.” I took a step back out of his reach, stumbled. He moved as if to help me, but I threw my hands up to keep him away. “You want this. You want the bond!”
This wasn’t bad. It was devastating. A ten on the emotional Richter scale. More than I could handle right now.
“You don’t—”
“Stop telling me I don’t understand! You don’t understand.”
“I—”
I cut him off again, relentless. I would make him get it. “You don’t even fucking know me, Hunter. You have no clue who I am, want I want, what I’ve done. Now you’re going to take out your anger on some stupid kid and treat me like shit because I don’t want to chain my soul to some stranger? One who’s nearly gotten me killed a million times in less than a week?”
“That’s not fair,” he said.
“No.” I shook my head. “What’s not fair is that you’ve somehow tricked yourself into thinking this is something you should want. Your feelings don’t give you free reign to do whatever you want.”
“Says someone who constantly does whatever he wants.”
If I did whatever I wanted I wouldn’t be alive right now. If I did what I wanted, maybe I would stop constantly feeling like I didn’t have enough air in my lungs.
I felt that same old weight pushing on my chest now, making it hard to even think. My hands shook at my sides but I couldn’t force them still.
“You have no idea,” I said. “You don’t know me Hunter.”
“I care about you. It’s not enough that I’m doing this for you, now you want me to do it with a smile on my face?”
I felt his pain lash out at me through the connection, and wanted to shrink back. It was hot and sharp, searing.
“Your emotions—they aren’t a get out of jail free card. The world isn’t governed by your desires.”
Hunter looked like he was watching a train wreck about to happen and was powerless to stop it. My hands moved to touch his face across the distance, but I forced them to stay at my sides. He turned his head away from me, into the trees, like he couldn’t even stand to look at me.
The minute I thought the world was on my side for once it waited until I wasn’t looking and bit me.
“You would say that,” he said to the trees, “considering you’re a hypocrite who spends all of his time running from his own.”
I reeled back like I’d been slapped. He’d seen more of me than I wanted him to. “Fuck you.”
He smirked. “You have.”
Caring about something you don’t want to is a particularly disgusting side effect of existing in the world. The humiliation of realizing someone has gotten to you—even after you were determined to keep them out, not to give them that power over you. . .but, like a puppet having it’s strings pulled, you do exactly what you’re desperate not to. You think about them. You care about what they think. They become your friend, and then they get stuck inside your head like a song on repeat, a disease with no cure.
That’s what makes it so dangerous, caring about people—it isn’t just something you feel, it becomes a part of you. Like the blood in your veins or your brain tissue, turning against you.
Images swarming around my head like flies: the shape of him in the darkness, the closeness of him, the temptation bursting through me every time I smelled him, touched him.
I couldn’t deny it anymore. I didn’t even really want to. Which just made me even more determined to try.
Guess what, Hunter? You got what you wanted. I think about you, and I don’t want to. I keep trying to cut you out of me like the cancer you are, but the sickness still spreads through me anyway. I’m so far gone I don’t even want to find a cure. I hate you for it.
“Don’t you dare—” I felt my hands shaking, the world threatening to tilt off of balance. He had no idea what kind of weapon he was playing with. I was no toy gun. I was a fucking nuclear device. “Don’t you dare try to flirt with me right now Hunter. You have no clue who you’re talking to.
“You don’t want me. You don’t love me. You don’t even know me.” The words were instant, robotic, pre-recorded. “You just know what you want.”
“Stop saying that! I know you better than anyone!” He shouted, the outburst making me stumble back. “That’s the entire point of the bond. I feel what you feel—I can practically tell what you’re thinking. I know you, Sky. I fucking know you.”
But he didn’t. How could he, when even I didn’t?
He shook his head. “You’re trying to convince yourself. Not me.”
“Then know this, Hunter. I’m not here to give you your happily ever after. I’m not here to solve your emotional dilemma—I’m already dealing with about five of my own. And I don’t need you. I don’t need you to come into my life and give me another one and make everything that much harder. I don’t need anyone but myself—which is exactly what I’m gonna be left with when this is over.”
I saw the moment he realized what I was about to do the minute I did myself. The expression scrawled across his features was worse to look at than the pages of every book that had ever made me cry.
Leave them before they leave you. Emotional suicide and salvation all in one.
“Sky—” he said, choked, and then nothing. Just that. Just my name. “Sky.”
The words were both a plea and a promise. But they couldn’t hold me; I was the reckoning come to tear both away for good.
In the distance the girl reappeared in the doorway of the massive house. She held a long, gleaming blade in her hands. It was more like a fencing rapier than the knight
ly broadsword I’d been expecting. It didn’t look entirely normal, as if it were made of some material I’d never seen before that reflected the sunlight in a glittering riot of colour. I glanced away, back at Hunter, as she started down the porch steps hesitantly.
“There,” I said. “You have the sword, and you know exactly what to do with it. So go to the Seelie court and break the bond so we can both get on with our lives. But when you do it—you can do it alone. Because I’m done, Hunter.” I started to walk away, but something stopped me, turned me back in his direction. When I spoke, the words were flat and hollow as I said, “And after today, I never want to see you again.”
Shadows of Ourselves Page 22