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“At me?”
“Oh my—“ He throws his head back as he rubs the heels of his palms into his eyes. “Unbelievable.”
“I know why you’re mad,” I say bitingly, getting a
He drops his hands to stare at me. “Why? Why am I mad?”
“You think I don’t know. That is so condescending! I’m not a child. I’m not an idiot.”
“I think you don’t understand. I hope you don’t understand, because if you do then what you did back there was cruel and I really don’t want to find out you’re cruel. A lot of things I can overlook, but I will not deal with that.”
“No one is asking you to deal with anything,” I growl, taking several quick steps toward him. “No one asked you to ‘overlook’ anything. If there are things about me that you don’t like, Ryan, then get the hell away from me. Leave me alone. You’ve been stalking me since the start. I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t ask for you or for them,” I spit out, gesturing to the north, toward the Colony, “and I definitely didn’t ask to be anyone’s hero. So go ahead and go. Walk away and let me forget about you and the Colony and Crenshaw and Vin. It’s all a mess anyway. I’ll be better off without it.”
Ryan closes the distance between us. He stops a single step away from me, staring down at me with his golden glowing eyes that make me want to cry. It’s so humiliating. The tears are everywhere lately and if I’m not very careful, I could drown in them. I’ll be like Alice from the Wonderland stories swimming in her own tears that refuse to stop because she’s too scared and lost and alone.
“You can’t do that. That’s not how it works,” Ryan tells me quietly, his anger seemingly gone. Poof, like magic. Like a burst balloon. “People aren’t all or nothing. Friendships don’t live and die on a single argument. You don’t love everything about a person and you don’t hate everything about them either. There are going to be things about you that I don’t like, Joss, but not all of them will send me ru
“So many,” I mumble.
He grins faintly. “But you can’t quit on me. Not until you find something you can’t forgive. Cruelty I can’t forgive. What about you?”
I swallow hard, shaking my head. I don’t know what a deal breaker for me is. I’ve never had to think about it. All I know is that the only thing I will not abide from him is dying. But I can’t say that because he won’t promise me that it won’t happen and I’ll hate him for it. So instead, I make an effort at mending fences in the hope that someday soon I’ll get good at it. And once I’m good at those, hopefully I’ll feel strong enough to rebuild bridges.
“I wasn’t being cruel,” I tell him firmly. “At least I wasn’t trying to be. I was impatient. I have this thing weighing on my chest, sitting like a sack of rocks on top of me and I can’t shake it. Not until I get this done and it’s already been weeks. I don’t have time to sit around talking nonsense with him all day. They don’t have time for that.”
“Okay, that’s fair. But remember, not all of his nonsense is nonsense.”
“Ugh,” I groan, dropping my head back. “I don’t have time for riddles either.”
“It’s not a riddle. Look, you’re smart. You’ll figure it out. Why don’t you go inside now? We’ve been out here awhile and we haven’t been quiet. That’s gotta be bugging you.”
“Not as much as it should be,” I mutter, looking up and down the street. It’s empty. For now. “Are you still going home?”
He hesitates, watching me. “I probably should.”
I grin. “Shoulda, woulda, coulda. What are you actually going to do?”
He kisses me. It’s light and lingering. Surprising. His lips are the only part of him touching me and they’re barely doing that. I feel exposed, open to the cold air while his heat is hovering nearby. It’s amazing, breathless and free, like I want to be kissed like this by him for the rest of my life. I know he’s done it on purpose. That he’s keeping his distant, giving me space. That he’s adapting to my own crazy, setting his watch to my cuckoo clock and it’s incredible how that makes me feel. How it changes the kiss into more than skin against skin. It makes it a promise. An understanding. It doesn’t feel closed in, doesn’t feel confining. It feels light as air, heavy as sunshine.
He breathes warm across my mouth, making me shiver and smile. When he pulls away, he puts two steps between us.
“Now I know I should go home,” he says, his voice deep.
I lift a skeptical eyebrow. “But are you going to?”
“I don’t know.”
“Come watch a movie with me,” I blurt out. “We can watch Pretty in Pink.”
“Why that one?” he asks, already closing the space between us again.
He’s so easy.
“Because I don’t like it.”
“Then why would we watch it?” he laughs.
The sound of his voice echoing up and down the deserted street makes me smile. I should be cringing. I should be telling him to shush it or he’ll get us killed. But I like the sound of his laughter all around me, the way it is in the loft when I feel the space shrink around him, becoming warmer. Brighter. Somehow more mine by his being there.
“You’ve seen what I like. Why wouldn’t I show you what I don’t like?”
He grins down at me, his eyes happy and full. “That’s a really good point.”
“Is that what people do?”
“I don’t know. But it’s what we do. When do I get to show you what I don’t like?”
I roll my eyes, turning my back on him to head toward the building. “I already know what you don’t like.”
“Really? Hit me with it.”
“You don’t like when I’m mean. When I’m too harsh.”
“True, but I just told you that.”
“You don’t like it when I pull away from you.”
He’s silent behind me, no sound other than his footfalls in time with mine.
“You don’t like it when you think I don’t trust you,” I continue.
“No, I don’t like it when you absolutely, positively do not trust me.”
I stop two steps up from him on the stairs, turning to look down at him.
“I do trust you. Probably more than I trust myself sometimes and that’s scary. I don’t like it, but I’m working on it. You’ve gotta give me time. It took me six years to be this way, it will take more than six weeks to change me.”
“I don’t want to change you, Joss.”
I grin at his lie. “Yes, you do. At least a little.” I shrug, continuing up the stairs. “And maybe it’s not the worst thing in the world. Maybe it will do me good to let my guard down a little.”
Famous last friggin’ words.
When we open the door to my loft, I nearly scream. That’s where I’m at on the threat level. Screaming. Let me make something crystal clear here; I. Do. Not. Scream. Ever. Not when they ate my parents, not when I ran into the street to find a world gone crazy, not even when they pounded on the outside of the car all day and all night as I lay shivering on the floorboards soaked in urine, sweat and fear. I never made a sound.
But now, finding Trent parked in the darkness in the middle of my loft, his eerie eyes fixed on my face like a hungry lion, I choke on a shriek.
“I will freakin’ kill you,” I breathe, begging my heart to stop pounding in my chest. It aches from the pressure.
“Good to see you too,” he drones.
“Come on, Trent, a little warning. We could have killed you, man,” Ryan complains behind me.
Trent smirks. “Not on your best day.”
“What do you want, psycho?” I demand.
“It’s not what I want. It’s what The Hive wants.”
Ryan curses behind me. I second that. Trent just nods.
“They want to see me,” Ryan eventually mumbles.
“They want to know why you’re fighting again. And who it is you’re fighting for.”
“When?”