CHAPTER TWENTY || HUNTER
“Do you want to talk about it?” Lee asked, the moment we were safely over the threshold of our cabin.
I rounded on him, my outrage cresting and causing me to tremble violently. “No!”
Lee studied me, concern in his eyes. His expression was drawn and unhappy, but he didn’t seem surprised by my outburst.
“Did you know?” I demanded.
“No. But I suspected there was something he wasn’t telling us.”
“You’re always so fucking smart! But that doesn’t seem like it helps, does it?”
Lee sighed, rubbing his temples. “If you need to get angry with me, that’s fine.”
Standing there, feeling rooted to the spot by my fury, I struggled to control my breathing.
How could Daniel keep something like this from us? He promised he wouldn’t keep secrets from us!
Never again. And I’d trusted him.
But that was stupid, wasn’t it? He was a liar.
And how the hell was Lee so calm?
“What will it take for you to actually get pissed off?” I demanded. “Daniel just lied to us. Again!”
“I’m not happy about any of this either,” Lee replied. “But I’m sure he had his reasons.”
My fury curdled and I realized I wasn’t angry at all. This wasn’t rage. It was pain.
I had trusted Daniel and he hurt me. Fuck.
“Like what?” I demanded, struggling to keep hold of my anger. Hot, humiliating wetness stung in my eyes.
“He was afraid of losing us.”
“Lee, don’t do this. Don’t.”
For a moment, my twin’s expression wavered and I thought he might stop and allow me to stay right where I was in my emotions. But then something hardened in him and he shook his head.
“You heard the same thing I did, Hunter.” His eyes searched mine and his voice turned softer. “He feels guilty. That’s why he spent two whole years working on a spell to fix this for us, even when we hated him.”
“But he didn’t tell us. He wasn’t honest and he promised—”
“He’s in love with us! Both of us! And what would’ve happened if he’d told us and we’d said yes?”
It was something I definitely didn’t want to hear. Because each syllable dismantled my anger, leaving me feeling naked, raw, and vulnerable.
I hated to admit it, because Lee was a dick for not letting me stew in my own shit—an unmitigated asshole, even—but he wasn’t wrong.
But I didn’t want to see this from Daniel’s perspective. That was the truth. Because then all of this hot, clean, self-righteous anger would leave me. And I would be left with something a hell of a lot more frightening: my fears.
And, yeah, my own shortcomings.
Which was—maybe, just maybe—part of the problem.
Hell, it had always been the problem, hadn’t it?
In fact, it was probably one of the reasons Daniel had felt like he couldn’t be honest with us from the jump. Because of me. Because of how I clung to my anger instead of reaching for even a speck of understanding and vulnerability.
Feeling like my legs were made of wood, I lurched across the cabin and sank down onto my bed.
Our bed.
Feeling uncomfortably like my insides were on the outside, I buried my face in my hands. “Fuck.”
After a long pause, Lee crossed the space between us and came to sit down on the bed as well, right next to me.
I didn’t look at him. Unspent emotion made my entire body rigid and fragile, as if any movement possessed the power to crack me right down the middle.
“Hunter.”
Though his voice was carefully neutral, my name contained both his understanding and his disapproval at the same time.
Lee was telling me he was still here for me—that he always would be—but that I was acting like a jackass.
He wasn’t exactly wrong.
I always processed my emotions like this—explosively and irrationally. Didn’t I? It was why we hadn’t talked to Daniel like a normal, sane person.
Because I was always too hotheaded and in my feelings to pull my head out of my ass and recognize that there might’ve been a valid explanation for everything.
For years, I’d stopped us from being happy.
By doing this—exactly this.
It was ridiculous how well we understood each other, even at this moment. I might’ve laughed if I didn’t feel so miserable.
“Lee,” I said. “You’re an asshole.”
“I know,” Lee said. “Ordinarily, I’d let you run out of steam first. But—”
“No,” I said. Then I took a deep breath—because holy hell, this was hard—and added, “You’re right. You’re always right. It’s one of the most annoying things about you.”
Lee let out a sharp breath that might’ve been a laugh. “Sorry.”
“Yeah, well, it’s also one of the best things about you.” I swallowed hard, around the hot lump in my throat. “This isn’t just about me.”
Somehow, just admitting that simple truth aloud made the rigidity vanish. The hot wash of emotions flooding me drained away, leaving me feeling cold and oddly empty.
Out of my periphery, I caught Lee shooting me a strange look, as if I’d surprised him.
“If he’d told us, I probably would’ve gone ballistic.” Then I met his gaze and added, “And if we’d said yes—that we wanted to do the spell, to become one person again—he would’ve lost us both.”
“Yeah. That’s about the size of it.”
“Do you want to?” I didn’t want to ask, but I felt like I had to. Apparently, I was more than willing to face my fears head-on when it really mattered.
And Lee mattered. And Daniel mattered, too. So fucking much.
My twin went quiet for a long time. I got the sense that he was really thinking it over, weighing every possibility before he gave me his answer. Processing it to within an inch of its life.
Lee was like that, whereas I always swung from my gut and let the chips fall wherever they were going to.
I’d spent so much time thinking that my impulsivity was wrong, a liability. But we balanced each other, didn’t we? How could I give that up?
How could I give up seeing Lee’s face first thing in the morning, so much like mine, except also different?
How could I give up Lee’s quiet contemplation, his simple and profound ability to sit with me even when I was in a shitstorm of my own making?
How could I give up his thoughtful pauses or the way his eyes lit up when an idea struck him suddenly?
He was my best friend, my twin, my other half.
And I loved him completely, even when I hated him, too.
“I’ve been asking myself if I’m real or not,” Lee said at last. “For the longest time. If I’m the half that doesn’t belong here.”
“The thought has occurred to me, too,” I replied wryly, watching him. I was hardly even surprised.
“We’re both real,” Lee said slowly. There was an odd conviction in his words.
“That’s the truth. We’re not really him anymore, exactly, but we’re both still him, too.
We both exist and we’re both complete people, in spite of—and maybe even because of—our differences.
Together, I think we might be more Hunter Lee Jameson than he ever was, when he was just one person. ”
I felt a rush of warmth at Lee’s words. And there was a strange gravity to them, as if Lee speaking them into existence somehow made them true. Through the connection between us, I could feel the choice he was making to let it be our reality.
I searched his gaze. “You’re right. But I’m still not sure that answers my question.”
“I don’t want to.” His eyes—identical in every way to my eyes, save for the grave expression they carried—locked with mine.
“It would mean losing myself. Though, I’m not sure I’d perceive it that way—probably, neither of us would.
” Then he paused and, more cautiously, he added, “But it would mean losing you, too, Hunter. And I don’t think I could handle that.
I think it would always feel like half of me was gone.
On some level, if I was still at all me, I’d probably miss you forever. ”
He was right. He was always right. We’d both be losing each other, wouldn’t we?
And we’d lose ourselves, too. Who we’d become in the time since we’d been split.
We would become a third person, someone new from the sum of our parts.
Would that person be more like me—the rash and impulsive one?
Or would he be more like Lee, prone to thoughtfulness and silence?
Or would he be someone entirely new?
Someone who thought he was both of us, but who wasn’t really either of us at all? Someone who had erased me and my twin from existence.
It filled me with dread, the idea of not just dying, but being fully removed from reality and remade into something new, someone who thought he was me, but no longer was. And the idea of a world without Lee in it was almost too dark a thought to even contemplate.
And the reason for that wasn’t hard to find.
“I love you,” I said. “I don’t really know what that means or how I’d ever even explain it to someone else. Hell, if you held a gun to my head and demanded that I put it into words, I’d probably tell you to pull the trigger, because I don’t think I have words for how I feel about you.”
The silence hung between us and Lee’s eyes filled, turning glassy.
I forced myself to keep going. “It’s not romantic, but it’s not—you’re not just my brother. You’re me. You’re the better side of me. You’re the side of me I actually love. And I always have.”
Something raw and tender swept across his face and he blinked furiously. His voice went thicker than before when he replied with, “You’ve never said you loved me before.”
“Well, I do. We’ve already established I’m an idiot, so let’s just add that onto the pile. And on top of all that, you’re my best friend, Lee. And I can’t lose you, either. I won’t. I’d miss you forever, too.”
Lee slid his hand into mine and squeezed it.
“You know what? It’s funny that you say that I’m the better half, but from where I’m sitting, I’m not sure that’s true.
” He smiled, his eyes still shining. “You always find a way to surprise me, Hunter. I’m pretty sure you’re going to keep doing it for the rest of our lives. ”
“Doubtful.” My eyes were wet, too, and burning. But I flashed him a watery grin. “We literally have the same brain, Lee.”
“We did, once. But I’m pretty sure we couldn’t be more different at this point. And I love you, too. I love everything about you, Hunter.”
“So, we stay who we are?”
“Yeah,” he said, exhaling long and slow. “I want to. It’s strange—it’s always been strange—but I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
I grinned at that and so did he.
“We need to talk to Daniel,” I said, sobering up. Concern crashed through me as I realized what was probably happening in our mate’s cabin. What he was probably putting himself through. “Crap on a stick. He probably feels like shit right now.”
“I asked Lacey to stay with him,” Lee said. “She won’t leave his side right now. She loves Daniel, too.”
“Thanks.” But that was Lee in a nutshell, wasn’t it? Always the light to my darkness. The yin to my yang or whatever.
“Micah is a dick,” Lee said, his tone going colder. “It’s hard to believe someone like Daniel was raised with people like them.”
“He’s better than all of them put together,” I agreed. “We’ll need to talk to him about the spell. But we also need to let him know that he’s not going anywhere he doesn’t want to go. That we still love him, that we always will.”
“I’m the better half, my ass,” Lee said, giving me an affectionate nudge with his shoulder.
Despite myself, I smiled, feeling a rush of warmth.
Then, without warning, the door to the cabin blew open.
Micah and both of Daniel’s parents stood in the doorway, magical power crackling around them.
Lee and I shot to our feet at the same moment.
But before we could do anything, Micah raised his hand and incanted that same spell that had frozen me back in the mess hall.
My muscles locked into place and I couldn’t move. Instinctive terror swept through me.
A triumphant grin split across Micah’s face, but his eyes were sharp with malice. “You know, I’ve never much liked you, even back when you were just one person,” he said. “But it’s your lucky day. You’re getting your old life back.”
He had Daniel’s journal tucked under his arm. My stomach plummeted as the meaning of Micah’s words sank in.
They were going to do this to us, whether we wanted it or not.
Daniel’s father regarded us with a cold expression, his narrow gaze settling on me and then Lee. “Daniel made a terrible mistake, and it cost you your life. And as his family, it is our responsibility to fix it.”