I can’t see him now. Not like this. Not when my eyes have decided to let every bit of disappointment and fear stream out. Not when I’ve only just realized how much of a monster I truly am.
I wish his curse would just take me. That I could just die right now, before I do something I’ll really regret, before I see the realization of what I am in his green eyes. Because if I did die now, then at least it would be because he loves me and not because of something I did.
I don’t want to wait for the day when his love stops. When he tells me he can’t love a monster.
“Faye! Wait up!” he shouts, now only feet behind me.
I make it to the first floor and push through the door. Sunlight slaps me across the face, and I have to shield my eyes with forearm and look away. My chest rises and falls so fast… too fast, and I can’t seem to catch my breath. I can’t seem to slow my rapidly beating heart. Running has never been an issue for me. Controlling my breathing has never been this hard.
I keep turning and turning and turning. Walls are closing in on me. There are no more corners for me to take. Nowhere left for me to hide. My knees are beginning to shake, and my feet are losing feeling. I’m sure I’m going to pass out. I’m going to drop right here with all these Elites and citizens of Ethryeal City watching from afar, trying to figure out what’s wrong with me.
But then I feel his heat and smell his intoxicating scent so close to me, and I have to squeeze my eyes shut to keep from completely breaking. I spin in circles, trying to pull myself together. Trying to keep from falling apart. I can only imagine what I must look like to him. How much of a train wreck he’s witnessing.
His hands wrap around my arms, gently turning me to him. “Faye?”
He’s using a calm voice, trying to hide his worry for me, but I can hear it as clearly as if he were screaming in my face about how much of a mess I am. How I need to quit the display that’s causing the people around us to stop and stare.
How the loose cannon has finally burst.
My forearm’s still shielding my face, my eyes, though now it’s not because of the sun. “I’m fine,” I struggle to say, but the tone of my voice doesn’t mix the way I intended it to with the statement.
“Bullshit,” he says, not out of anger, but out of concern. “I haven’t seen you in days. You’re avoiding me, and I don’t know why.” He tries to pull my arm away from my face. I resist at first, but he’s stronger than I am. In more ways than one. “I need to know what’s going on. Why you’re avoiding me, because I know you have been and it’s really starting to piss… What the—?”
I know he sees now why I’ve been avoiding him.
I try to look away, but his hands cup my face, holding me firmly, but gently in place. His thumb barely grazes over my split lip. He turns my face to the side, and I can only imagine the handprint he sees left from Clara’s disappointment, because it still stings as if it just happened. I feel every inch of the flesh she used to hit me with, like it’s embedded in my skin.
“Tell me what the hell is going on, Faye,” he says, voice dangerously low. “Right now.” His hands begin to shake against my skin, as if it’s taking all of his control to stay in front of me and not march back up those stairs and take out any and every one who has hurt me.
The image of his neck snapping inside of swirling smoke nearly gags me on the spot. My stomach twists into an unredeemable knot. “It’s nothing,” I force out, looking away from him.
Just tell him, a little voice in the back of my head says. But I can’t, I really can’t, because I know him. I know him as well as I know myself and, if the roles were reversed, I would have someone’s head. He won’t take the truth lightly. He won’t be able to refrain from using force against Clara, and I don’t want the images in the smoke to come true.
He exhales forcefully, and then pulls me against his chest, holding the back of my head as if he’s scared to let me go. Like if he does, then he knows I’ll fall apart into a million pieces right here on the sidewalk, and he’ll have no way to put me back together again because life isn’t a fairytale with happy endings. It’s real, it’s cruel, and it’s a bitch to get through.
If anyone knows that, it’s him.
“There’s no way in hell that’s training, Faye,” he says with too much suspicion in his voice. “I know you. You’re too quick on your feet… too smart to let hits like that happen. What has Clara done?”
I feel like my tongue is stuck in quicksand. As if my mind can’t come up with the lies I need quickly enough. An uncomfortable warmth trickles down my entire body, beneath my skin, making me shiver against my will.
Keep it together, I tell myself.
“I-uh, I’m having an off day.” My voice cracks in the middle of the sentence, and I tuck myself further in his arms, praying he doesn’t try to look me in the eyes. I’ve never been good at lying.
He holds me tighter. “Faye,” he says softly, “it’s just me. You can tell me.”
He’s being so sweet, so kind, and I swear my heart’s ripping in two. I feel like a thousand knives, coated in every lie I’ve ever told, are stabbing right through me, again and again and again. And I want to bleed them out. I want to rid my body of every awful truth I’ve held within me.
But then I hear it… the horrific sound of Jaxen’s fate. Snap!
“Really,” I force out a little too quickly… a little too desperately. “That’s all there is to it.” I hope he can’t feel my heart racing or hear my crowded thoughts. I pull myself away from him, needing to put distance between us before I break. Smoothing back my hair, I straighten out my jacket. “I-uh-I have to get back though,” I say, inching toward the door. “Clara was just giving me a break to re-coup. You should get back to your class.”
He laces his fingers through mine, and I know I’m going to melt. My knees are going to disintegrate.
“The class is a joke, Faye. Supernatural Communications,” he says with a ridiculing laugh. “I already know how to communicate.” Sliding his hand over the hilt of his wooden flux, he smirks. A moment slips between us, and then his face darkens. His eyes turn serious. “But what I don’t know is what you’re hiding. That’s more important right now.” He standing firm and tall, and I know he isn’t going to back down. He’s not going to let me go until I tell him what he wants to hear.
“Jaxen, really, I’ve already told you,” I say, feeling my internal temperature rising, spreading to my cheeks, giving me away.
“You really haven’t,” he says, this time with his eyes locked on mine. He drags a tired hand down his face. We’re dancing around an awkwardness we really haven’t had between us before, and it’s killing me.
I don’t look away. That’s the first sign of a lie. I inhale, root myself, and say, “I’m serious. I’m having an off day. I’m pissed I let this happen.” I point to my face. “So Clara let me grab some air so I can fight with a clear head. That’s all. Now, I really have to get back. She’s going to be looking for me, and I really want to kick my fight partner’s ass.”
I don’t wait for his objection. Letting go of his hand, I walk past him, heading for the door to the stairwell.
But he grabs me by the arm, spinning me around. “What are you hiding?” he yells out. He looks like he’s about to burst, like if I tell one more lie, he’s going to explode.
I’m boiling, overflowing all around us. The pressure that’s already been building within me is too much to take. Too much to calm. I’m scared that I’m on the verge of telling him the truth, that in his safe, green eyes, I’ll be weak and seek solace, and tell every wrong that Clara has ever done.
But I can’t be weak. I won’t. So I say the very thing I swore I wouldn’t question him on.
I yank my arm back and glare up at him, ignoring the searing heat from my mark. His anger is as pungent as mine is—as real as mine. “Me? What about you, Jaxen? What are you hiding from me?”
His eyes widen and he takes a step back, but I follow, poking him in the c
hest. “I mean, seriously, why do you even think I’m hiding something? Is it because you are? Is your guilt making you cynical… suspicious even? Are you searching for something to make you feel less guilty? When are you going to tell me whatever it is that Clara has over your head?”
He’s shaking his head, his gaze falling to his feet. “What’s gotten into you?” His words come out as a scared whisper, haunted by ghosts I can’t even begin to make out.
I don’t back down. “Gotten into me? Maybe I’m sick of being left out. Maybe I’m sick of everyone thinking they know more than I do. That they can control and manipulate me. Is that all I am to you? A conquest? A person to manipulate?”
His eyes narrow. His lips press thin. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Faye. You’re not making any sense.” His fear is turning into anger, and I’m glad. I’d rather him be mad at me than dead. I’d rather him think I’m crazy than know the truth.
I snort a cynical laugh. “That’s just perfect, but then again, I am dating someone with an affinity partner, so I guess secrets are a part of the deal. I just wish we could have been clearer on that in the beginning.”
I’m talking circles, and I know it. I’m okay with it. I’m pushing him as far away from the truth as I can. Distracting him from what’s staring him straight in the face.
“Are you even thinking right now? Do you even hear yourself?” He plunges a hand through his hair. Curses under his breath.
I know I’m spiraling out of control, taking more out on him then I should, but I can’t stop my tongue from flinging careless words. I can’t stop the avalanche that’s finally started. I can’t keep from hurting him in a way I know will push him away. Hurting him the way only a woman could. A woman like his mother.
“I hear myself crystal clear,” I say in a low voice. “There’s something you, Jezi, and everyone else knows, that I don’t. You don’t want to tell me, fine, but don’t question me. Ever again. Okay? In fact, just stay away from me.”
His eyes bunch together. “No.”
I glare at him. “How very selfish of you.”
“Selfish? Me?” he asks, flinching back. He turns and growls one good, loud time, and then turns back to me, inhaling deeply. He exhales, opens his eyes, and approaches me calmly. “I know what you’re doing, and you’re not going to push me away, Faye. Not until I know you’re safe.”
This isn’t going to work. He’s not going to give up. I look away from him, cursing under my breath. He’s impenetrable. Only a monster could truly hurt him, could bring him to his knees.
I am a monster.
Short, clean, and to the point. That’s how this has to end. That’s how I’m going to keep him alive.
“The only person I’m not safe from is you!” I shout out, fists balled at my sides and tears falling freely now. Nine words never sounded so awful. Never burned like acid as they slid up my throat.
Nine words that formed into the screwdriver that just drove straight through his heart.
“What?” he breathes out, his face devoid of all emotion. All except heartrending pain.
“You want me to die for someone who can’t even let me all the way in? You want your love to poison me when you can’t even trust me enough to tell me everything? How is that keeping me safe?”
He flinches back as if I’ve slapped him. Hard. I’m shaking, scared, and wishing I could erase the words from his mind. But I can’t.
“Fine,” he says just as low.
And just like that, he walks away from me, leaving me feeling like a hole has been punched all the way through my gut, leaving my insides bleeding out on the floor in front of me, all because I need him to believe I’m okay. That Clara isn’t the Witch she really is.
All to keep him from hurting himself.
MAKING TOUGH CHOICES IS HARD, but living the effects of them is even harder.
By the time I make it back to the training floor, I’ve hardened myself from the juncture I left behind on that sidewalk outside the Military Compound. The moment where the little grasp I had on everything happening finally slipped away.
The thread I’m left hanging onto is thin, so thin, that I fear it’ll break if I don’t believe I made the right choice. That by letting Jaxen down… pushing him away even… I’ve saved his life if only for another day.
I have to believe it was the right choice.
I smell her heavy perfume… feel her steely presence, before I even look up. It’s almost instinct in me now to feel fear. To take the hand of dread and run away with it, letting it devour every sane part of me. But there’s no fear to be felt. The worst thing that could possibly happen has already happened. The person I love walked away from me… and I let him, making him believe I don’t trust him. Abandoned him even. Hurting him in all the worst ways, like his mother had hurt him.
If he didn’t see the monster in me before, I’m sure he’s seen it now.
Clara’s waiting outside the door to the training room. Her eyes watch my every step, calculating, formulating whatever it is she’s about to say. I can’t escape her suffocating, invisible hold around my neck, and I don’t think I care anymore. I deserve it.
I keep my chin in the air. My eyes set dead ahead. I don’t feel anything. I refuse to. I’m an empty husk. A skeleton held together by deception and broken moments.
She nods curtly when I’m close enough, saying under her breath, “That was an interesting display outside the compound.”
I should feel shocked she was watching me, but I’m not surprised at all. My privacy went away the day I touched the Culling quartz.
“There were so many people watching, I figured they’d like a little lunchtime show,” I say flatly, unfeeling. I don’t need a reminder of what happened. I do not intend to relive it. Not even for her.
I think her lip twitches. Her hands held in front of her clench together a little tighter. “Is Jaxen Gramm becoming a problem?” she asks. The threat in her question is so painfully loud, so stiflingly choking.
“Not anymore,” I reply as evenly as I can. As fluidly as the words will slip out.
“Good,” she says, and I believe she’s pleased enough to let it go. Enough to allow me to breathe again. She reaches behind her and turns the knob to the room. Pushes the door open. Locks her gaze on mine. “There’s a slight change of plans in your lesson today. For some reason, another member of the Priesthood has asked to see you perform, and there’s no way I can deny him. So, I’ve set up another simulation of the mission we’re training toward.” She moves closer to me, dropping her tone. “I need you to pass this with flying colors. Show him the hard work I’ve put into you.”
“Okay,” I say blankly.
“If you screw this up…” She drags her thumb across her neck, and I can almost feel the blade on my skin. I wish it were real. I beg for its release. “Did you hear me?”
I blink and look up at her. “I won’t screw up.”
“Good. Then let’s begin.” She heads straight to the other door, leaving me standing in the middle of the room on the X I’ve come to call home. “Faye Middleton, the simulation will now begin.”
I drop to a crouch inside the metal room, gripping the hilt of my flux made to resemble the Dagger of Retribution. Fear and adrenaline rush past the starting gates of my heart, feeding my muscles.
Don’t screw this up. Don’t screw this up, I repeat over and over, praying I can get through this without another incident with Clara.
The room darkens. Silence slips out of my nightmares and forms into a monster I cannot avoid. I have to face this. I have to fight back if I want to get out of here.
On cue, gas laced with Belladonna pumps through the vents, replacing the oxygen. My mind shifts, weakening just enough to drop my guard, and then the minds of Clara’s Witches on the other side of the glass push against mine. They’re filling my mind with scenarios, making me see things that aren’t really here. This is how the Elite are trained. This is for the Watchmen who have overcome and proved
their worth to this Coven.
But I am none of these things.
I am a lab rat running scared through mazes and being pumped full of lies. I want to expel them from my mind—purge them from my system—but if I do, then I lose the chance of ever seeing Jaxen again. The simulations are all I have left now.
“Your objective is to break the Holy Seal. Under no circumstance are you to stray from this mission.”
The weight of the Belladonna slowly lifts with every whispered word in my mind. The metal walls of the room fall away, one by one, until I’m standing in the middle of a very large, very old, Catholic Church. The inside of the church is eerily quiet. Dim light streams through the stained glass windows, casting shadows over the few people in the pews, each with their head bent in prayer.
My heart accelerates with awareness. Any minute, I’ll see him again. I’ll touch him once more without having to see the anger and disappointment in his gaze. I close my eyes and wait for his heavenly scent. Electric and leather assault my senses. Heat radiates off his body from behind me. I turn, and then open my eyes, gazing up at him.
I know he isn’t real, I know this is a simulation, but I can’t stop myself from wanting to apologize. From wanting to tell him the truth and take back everything that happened outside.
“We need to keep moving,” he says mechanically.
Jezi appears beside him, then Gavin, then Cassie and Weldon, and a few others who I’ve never seen before. They’re all smiling at me as if they don’t have a care in the world. As if I’m not about to watch them all die.
Biting the inside of my cheek, I turn to the back of the church. I know where I need to go. The layout has been placed in my subconscious during one of my many sessions with Clara.
Jaxen takes my hand in his. Together, we make our way past the grand features of the Lady Chapel and stop in front of a wooden door. The entrance to the crypt is behind it. Deep inside the crypt is where the Holy Seal is kept.
“Are you ready for this?” Jaxen asks me.