Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
Luckily, there’s hardly anyone left in the parking lot, because I’m unravelling too fast to behave properly in public.
“Betts, what’s going on?” Leo jogs up beside me, reaching for my arm.
I spin and throw up my hands, blocking his grip. “Even old ladies are doing it!”
“Doing what?”
A Cadillac hesitantly rolls in our direction, trying to get to the exit without running us over. I jerk to a stop and wave it past.
“Doing what?” Leo repeats. “Is this because she thought you were pregnant?”
“No.” Okay, maybe in part, but I’m not prepared to think about that right now.
The white Caddy is so slow, I have to swing around its retreating tail end before I can race to the safety of Leo’s car.
“What, Betts?” he growls behind me. “Talk to me.”
“To you?” I whip around and poke his chest. “Okay, I’ll talk to you, while you talk about me. While everyone talks about me like I’m not even there!” I gulp in a breath. “I don’t care what Jean says, I don’t need you to protect me.”
“But she’s right. It’s the same thing we’ve all been saying—you don’t know how powerful you are.”
I’m seconds from ripping out my hair. “Then tell me! Tell me how powerful I am. Stop keeping secrets and… and spoon feeding me. Stop acting like I’m going to break all the time!”
He swallows and shakes his head. “I’m trying—as best as I can.”
“Trying? What’s there to try?” I glare up into those dark brown eyes. “It’s pretty clear-cut, Leo. If it has anything to do with me, then it’s something you should tell me.”
“It’s not that simple,” he insists. “I’m trying to make this easy for you. I’m trying to make it as painless as possible.”
“Painless?” I nearly shriek. “Oh, that’s a good one.”
I stomp the rest of the way to the car, the sound of his breath and hurried footsteps close behind me. When I turn, he’s right there, nearly pinning me to the car.
“I’ll tell you whatever you want to know,” he says, voice deep and rough. “But I’m never going to stop trying to protect you.”
“I don’t want you to protect me. You of all people.”
He grimaces. “I know. I get it. I lied to you, but—”
I cut him off with a sneer. “But what? You were trying to protect me?”
His nostrils flare.
“You can take your protection and shove it up your ass!” I whip around and yank repeatedly on the locked door handle, like if I just pull hard enough it’ll magically open.
Leo gently shoulders me aside and hits the button on his key fob. I don’t look at him as I throw myself into the passenger seat, blinking and wiping under my eyes with my thumb. By the time he slides into the driver’s side, I’ve collected myself.
In a voice laced with disgust, I say, “She put you in charge of me.”
“Who?”
I gape at him, disbelieving. “Jean. She said you’d tell me whatever it was she—” I make angry air quotes, “‘felt in my blood.’” When I’m ready, no less. Like he has the authority to determine when that is.
Like he owns me.
I hide my shaking hands under my folded arms. “I’m not some tool you keep safe in a drawer and only take out when you need to use it.”
“Is that what you think?” He sounds more concerned than offended.
“Did you or did you not give Rime instructions on how to protect me at the river?”
“Of course I did.”
“I’m not an Ikea bookshelf!”
He looks at me, eyes blank and brow dipped. Guess he’s not familiar with assemble-yourself furniture.
I try to explain, but what comes out of my mouth surprises even me.
“The only reason you talked to me that night at O-Chi was because I could see you. Because you needed another psychic for your little team. It didn’t matter who I was as long as I was useful.
” And, fool that I was, I thought he was flirting. I thought he was interested in me.
His eyes flash. “How can you think that? Betts—if I’d had any common sense, I would’ve chosen someone else.
” His hands are balled tight, like he’s trying to contain fistfuls of frustration.
“I tried. I said to myself, ‘she’s a bad idea,’ but it didn’t matter—because I couldn’t stop searching that crowd for you. ”
That party was five months ago, but the memories are so clear, it may as well have been last night. The crowd parted, and there he was, elbow on the counter, warm gaze on me.
He heaves a sigh. “I went back the next week just to see you again, because I couldn’t get you out of my head.”
I open my mouth to object, but he rushes to add, “And not because I thought you might be psychic. I would’ve talked to you, regardless. You fascinated me from the moment I laid eyes on you.”
I watch him through brimming tears as he grips the top of the steering wheel and stares out the windshield, arms stiff and hands clenching.
“I don’t know what to do anymore. I’m just making one mistake after the next. I’m sorry that I dragged you into this. Into any of it. I should’ve left you alone—”
“You fucked up my whole life,” I sob. But I’m not angry; I’m scared. “You took me away from Zander and my friends, from everything that ever made any sense!”
“Is that what you want? To go back to Zander?”
“No! But—” But what?
I let Leo in and he wrecked me, that’s what.
I feel his gaze on me, getting hotter and hotter as he waits for my answer.
“I trusted you, and you lied to me,” I whisper, lips trembling. “You were going to just throw me away, like you didn’t even care.”
“Betts, no—” Leo’s low groan fills the car. “I do care. You don’t even know how much.”
“Then how could you do that? How could you sleep with me when you knew everything I believed about you was a lie?”
“Look at me—”
I continue to stare down at my hands, twisting and wringing them in my lap.
“Betts, please—”
Oh god. My stupid mind takes me right back to his bed. I’m underneath him, lost in his eyes.
Betts, look at me.
Betts, please.
And then his sighed words when I complied, a chuisle mo chroí.
There was anguish in his voice then, almost as much as there is now.
“I was stupid and impulsive and reckless,” he admits.
“I took what I wanted, and I tried to convince myself that I wasn’t hurting you.
I’m sorry.” He buries claw-like fingers in his hair.
“But I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.
You’re a human, Betts, and I don’t know what that means for us. This is uncharted territory.”
I watch him, barely seeing, as mortification scalds my cheeks.
How had this not occurred to me?
Leo’s not some all-American college boy with bad manners. He isn’t Zander or Braden. And the looming crisis isn’t who’s going to be O-Chi Sweetheart, it’s whether an entire realm can be saved. Another realm.
I’m human and Leo is fae.
In this light, everything makes so much more sense.
What I assumed was carelessness or manipulation was a man groping in the dark.
The way he tested and challenged my belief in the supernatural.
The way he wrestled with himself every time we got too close.
I thought it was because I had a boyfriend, but it was something so much bigger.
I think back to our night together, after he healed the marks Zander left on my arm.
Whatever happens with us, promise me you won’t go back to him.
Leo wasn’t being a toxic, competitive male, he was anticipating an uncertain future.
He knew this thing between us could blow up in our faces, and he wanted to know I’d be safe.
“Leo—” Lord knows why I open my mouth; I don’t know what to say. Nor do I know why my hand is halfway to his knee. I draw it back, but he snatches it and gives it a gentle squeeze.
“You can think what you want about me. You can be angry forever—I know I deserve it. But don’t, for one minute, think I don’t care about you.” He kisses the backs of my fingers before he lets my hand go. “Just tell me what you want and I’ll do it. If you want space, I’ll keep giving it to you.”
Space. Is that what he’s been doing? Giving me space? Maybe that’s what I’ve been doing, too. Trying to keep at least five feet of air between us, a no-man’s-land neither of us should cross. Because I know if I go out there, my heart’s going to get blasted to hell.
I turn away and, with a shaky hand, wipe the sweat from my hairline. He’s close, suddenly, close enough I can feel his warmth. And his desperation.
“Is that what you want?” he asks. “Do you want me to stay away?”
When I turn to face him, his eyes are no more than a foot from mine. And they’re so beautiful.
With a gentle thumb, he wipes the tears from my cheeks. “Tell me, Betts. Whatever you want, I’ll give you.”
Him. I want him. So badly my heart is pounding in my throat. But I’m drowning in an ocean of fear. Both his and mine. Waves of it ricochet from one corner of the car to the other.
“I want to be able to trust you,” I say. “Don’t keep me in the dark anymore. And no more lies.”
“No more,” he whispers back.
He comes in closer, like he’s going to kiss me, and my nervous system goes haywire. Yes! No, don’t! Please kiss me. No, please stay away. Instead, his forehead meets mine, his hair tickling my skin and his breath warm on my cheeks. “No more. I promise.”
He pulls away, leaving me confused and aching, and starts the car. For a moment, I forget where I am and what happened this morning.
Church and donuts and Jean seeing straight through Leo’s glamour.
We’re silent as we leave Redemption Baptist Church and make our way back to town. The emotions swarming around me are so potent, I want to roll down the window and shoo them out of the car.
At the intersection of South and Main, we roll to a stop as two elderly women cross the street to the drugstore.
Leo asks me, “Do you have anywhere you need to be this afternoon?”
“I just have some homework to do.”
I watch the smaller of the women, the one with the lopsided gait, grab her friend’s arm to steady herself as she steps up onto the sidewalk.
“Then come back with me, just for a little while.” Leo’s eyes dart to me before he hits the gas. “I want to show you all our research. And if you have any questions, I’ll answer them.”
“Any?”
“Any.”
I doubt a little while is enough for all my questions, but it’s a start. And it’s better than wallowing in self-pity and resentment. Like the old ladies crossing the street, he’s offering me his arm. I’d be stupid not to accept it.
I fiddle with the cuffs of my sleeves. “If you don’t mind—”
He glances at me, expression soft, almost tender. “I don’t mind.”
Suddenly shy, I ask, “Will you show me the Secotan necklace?”
“Of course.”
“Okay, then.”
“Good.”
Instead of turning onto campus, he stays on Main Street, heading toward the north of town and Breakridge. With an elbow propped on the door and his head tipped into his hand, he sighs.
He sounds so tired.