CHAPTER 36 FAE #2
My breath catches, it feels criminal that only a few hours ago he was whispering that to me in this very room. If heart ache could, it would bleed out of me. I feel it in my ribs, in my throat, in every stupid, traitorous part of me that believes this is enough.
“Do you love me?”
My heart pounds so hard it hurts at the question, loving Roman feels like pressing a bruise just to make sure it still hurts.
“Love doesn’t matter, it’s worthless here,” I say quietly.
His face hardens. “Don’t.”
“It doesn’t,” I repeat, louder, because if I don’t, I might crumble. “Love doesn’t stop bullets. It doesn’t stop contracts. It doesn’t stop men like my Father.”
“It stops me from walking away.”
“Maybe you should walk away!” I shout.
The words echo as we stare at each other. Hurt flashes across his face. Real hurt. Not anger. Not ego. I swear I can feel my heart psychically recoil when I see the pain reflected in his eyes.
“You’d rather marry Fisher than marry me?” he asks.
“That’s not what I said.”
“But you won’t marry me.”
“Not like this!” I cry. “Not because we’re cornered. Not because it’s some desperate move to keep you breathing. I’m not going to be forced into marriage by my Father and call it romantic just because it’s you instead of Fisher.”
“So, you’d rather sacrifice yourself?” He hisses as his eyes burn in anger.
“Yes.”
“You don’t get to decide that alone,” his voice drops to a whisper.
“I do when it’s my life.”
“It’s my life too!” he roars. “He threatened me. That makes it mine.”
I shake my head, tears stinging now even though I refuse to let them fall.
“You don’t understand what he’s capable of.”
“I don’t care.”
“I do!”
He spins away from and grabs the edge of his dresser his knuckles turn white.
“I have spent the last three years loving you,” my breath catches. “And you stand there,” his voice breaks in a way I’ve never heard before, “telling me it’s worthless.”
“I won’t let him use you to get to me,” I whisper.
“And I won’t let him use you to get to me either,” he shoots back.
We’re mirrors. We’re fire reflecting fire.
“You don’t love me,” he says finally, the anger thinning into something rawer. “Not enough.”
My chest cracks open.
“Don’t you dare,” I breathe. “Don’t you dare question how I feel about you.”
“Then fight for me.”
“I am fighting for you!” I scream. “By letting you go!”
“Bullshit.” He steps further back like he can’t stand to be near me anymore. “If you loved me, you would choose me.”
Tears blur my vision as I stare as still as a statue.
“If you loved me,” I whisper back, “you’d let me save you.”
Something in him shuts down. I see the warmth, the pleading, the desperation all of it just…go.
“Fine,” he says flatly and turns to walk to the door.
“Ro—”
The door slams so hard the frame rattles. My knees give out before I can stop them. I sink onto his bed and the mattress dips beneath me, still warm from where he probably laid waiting for me to get home.
I tease the quilt as the first real tear falls from my eyes.
Love is worthless.
But as I curl into his sheets, breathing him in, my chest aching like it’s been hollowed out, I realise something far worse. Love might be worthless. But losing him is still going to destroy me.
My phone vibrates in my pocket and I sigh as I pull it out.
Quinn:
We need to talk. Alone. You owe me that much. Old Mill Road. 20 minutes.
I stare at the message until the screen dims. My reflection looks back at me; pale, bruised and hollow-eyed. I owe her nothing and the fact she thinks I do is almost enough for me to not turn up.
A slow rumble of anger bubbles inside of me. Anger is good, anger is better than whatever this feels like. But even though it kills me to admit it. She can save him and I can’t.
I can't fix what just happened with Roman. I can’t undo the look on his face when I told him love was worthless. I can’t unsay the things that shattered between us. But Quinn? Quinn is something I can control.
I wipe under my eyes, straighten my spine and rebuild the armour piece by piece until there’s nothing soft left to see. Standing up, I walk out of Roman’s room and straight into a wall... no, not a wall. Atlas.
“Where are you going?” he asks, his eye narrow as he looks at me.
“Out.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“I’m meeting Quinn.”
“Alone?” His jaw tightens.
“Yes.”
“Fae—”
“I’ll handle it,” I cut in.
My voice is steady even though I feel anything but. “I can’t deal with anything else right now.”
His expression softens at that, before he nods once.
“Be careful.”
Outside, the sky is already bruising into night. I get into my car and shut the door. The silence is immediate and suffocating. Normally, I’d turn the music up, playing it so loud it drowns out the voices in my head. Tonight, I don’t, because nothing could drown this pain away.
Roman’s face replays behind my eyes. The hurt.
The anger. The way he said, you don’t love me.
My chest tightens so hard I have to inhale through my teeth.
I do love him. I love him so much that the thought of him sacrificing himself for my safety is too much to bear.
I have lost my mum. I’ve lost my best friend.
I cannot, no, I will not, be the reason we lose him too.
The road narrows the further I drive. Streetlights disappear.
Trees swallow the horizon. Gravel spits under my tyres as I turn onto Old Mill Road.
The barn rises out of the dark like something long forgotten.
It has been abandoned for years, the wood warped and sagging as if it has been holding its breath.
The metal roof is streaked with rust, eaten through in places and there isn’t another car in sight.
All that is here is open land and silence, stretching too far in every direction.
My foot eases off the accelerator.
I put my car in park and the engine cuts off as the quiet folds in around me.
I take a deep breath before I step out. The loud slam of the car door rings across the deserted field like a gunshot.
The air feels colder, damp enough to cling to my skin and smells like earth and rot as though something has been left too long without light.
A few feet from the barn doors, as if she’s been waiting for a spotlight to find her, Quinn stands with her shoulders back. Her blonde hair barely moves in the breeze. She is wearing a pale coat that is cinched at the waist, hugging her frame like she dressed for an entirely different occasion.
Weirdly, she doesn’t even look out of place. She looks intentional. Like something carved from porcelain.
Or bone.
“I’m glad you could make it,” she says smoothly.
I say nothing. I don’t trust my voice. She tilts her head, studying my face. I wonder if she can see the bruise in this light, or the exhaustion. Can she see the heartache infecting my skin?
“You look awful.”
That answers that question.
“Get to the point,” I snap as a faint smile curves her lips.
“You’re ruining his future.”
“I know,” I respond.
I don’t need to be told who he is. I know. And she knows that I know, although clearly that isn’t the response she expected, as her brows lift slightly.
“You are a poison to him,” she continues. “You always have been.”
“I know,” I repeat. “You can have him,” I say flatly. “I won’t fight you anymore.”
For a moment, something ugly flashes in her eyes. It looks like triumph mixed with disappointment. The hair on the back of my neck stands up and I glance around at our surroundings, but the darkness swallows my line of sight.
“That sounds good,” she says slowly, bringing my focus back go her. “But it’s too late for that.”
“Too late?” I frown.
“Roman can’t be trusted to make the right decision where you’re concerned. Hell, I don’t even think his mum can be trusted.”
She flicks her hand like it’s an inconvenience and confusion flickers through me. I shuffle on my feet as a cool breeze sends goose pimples across my body.
“What does that mean?” I snap as I feel my heart beating harder in my chest.
A twig snaps behind me. It’s small enough that on any other day I would have caught it instantly but instead I focus on Quinn, staring her down as she stands regally in the doorway.
My body takes a step forward before I pause again as I hear the faint shift of weight against gravel.
It sounds like the quiet compression of stone under a careful boot that doesn’t belong to wind or wildlife.
My hair whips my face as I spin around and see a dark shadow storming towards me.
The scream to warn Quinn to get to safety is lodged in my throat as I duck under the masked man’s first punch.
I stumble slightly and he manages to get a swift kick into my ribs.
I groan at the shooting pain that tears through my chest before biting my tongue from the pain.
Using my body, I throw my body to the floor before I spin back on my haunches.
Dropping my hands behind me, I spring off the ground and use the momentum to kick out his knee.