Chapter 51
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
MICAH
I was out of the house before the sun had even touched the horizon, unwilling to put myself in a position to be ambushed by Mason.
Last night was horrible, and I was in zero mood to discuss it with him.
The questions I’d seen lingering in the depths of his eyes for weeks had finally made their way to the surface. Questions I’d never want to answer.
The tires of my truck rumbled over the road as I drove aimlessly. There was almost no one on the streets at this hour, the damp asphalt reflecting the faint blue of morning. I didn’t have a real plan; I just needed to be away from him.
Pine trees blurred past on either side of me, the sky slowly lightening in the gap above the road.
Every now and then, my headlights caught a veil of mist drifting low across the road before it disappeared into the darkness again.
My fingers flexed on the wheel as I swallowed the panic that’d been clawing at my throat since last night.
Blades didn’t fix my problems anymore. The physical pain was too fleeting to surpass the mental pain, healing too quickly, never really lingering.
But without that, I couldn’t unscramble my thoughts.
I couldn’t get the reprieve I needed to straighten myself out. Couldn’t have something else to focus on.
I considered doing something Mason would do, like jumping off a cliff and landing on the rocks below, or crashing my car at its top speed, or finding other angels to fight, but the ideas didn’t sound appealing to me whatsoever.
Being shot by him was about as far as I wanted to deviate from slicing my skin open—not that I even had interest in doing that again.
And Mason was the only angel I wanted to fight.
So, I was back to square one. Unable and unwilling to speak.
Square zero, even. Since now I couldn’t carve into my flesh to grant my brain the clarity it needed to keep control.
I didn’t want Dakota to know about that.
Mason had seen it recently, but he was different.
If Dakota saw it, she’d inadvertently see it as something worse than it was.
This wasn’t the same as a human doing what I did.
Sometimes I wondered if it would be worth it to explain to her how angels actually acted in Heaven, and all the things humans did that angels never considered.
Not because they never thought about it, but because it felt pointless.
I could also tell her how I’d never met another Sigeian who used their powers how I did.
How I’d never heard of a Thrausian being dampened by Sigeian power, and the idea only came to me because I was fucked in the head and obsessed with Mason Ashborn, too stubborn to see that what I wanted wouldn’t work.
Each mile I put between myself and my house didn’t seem to make a difference in my emotional state. I could run, but never far enough to change what was coming.
I should’ve known he’d try that eventually, should’ve predicted my reaction to it.
But I’d been distracted by Dakota, already failing to hold myself together as strong as I wanted to when we stumbled up the stairs last night. And realizing that, right in the middle of it, was like slashing a rip in the fabric of time and plummeting straight though into a terrifying memory.
And while Mason knew part of the reason for that, he didn’t know it all.
Beams of dim sunlight broke through the branches in pine trees, flickering as I sped along the road. Wind rushed into the car, but it didn’t make a difference. There wasn’t enough neon on Earth to fix me.
I would give anything for a full breath of Heaven’s air.
I can’t fucking breathe. I can’t fucking do this.
I’ll never have that again.
Unless…
Mason knew what bad things happened in Heaven, knew what’d happened to me.
It only happened once, but that experience reshaped my whole life, shattered my entire sense of self, and changed me for good.
It was almost impossible for me to think about, and even harder for me to talk about.
I’d never really talked about it. Even with Mason.
It only ever directly came up two times across the span of our entire relationship. The first time he’d voiced his desire to top me, and the time I actually let him. Both mentions were vague, but enough for him to understand.
All I wanted was for him not to treat me differently, and maybe that was part of the reason I liked fighting with him so much.
Even fighting for control, fighting for dominance.
It made me feel normal. I imagined that was what I would’ve been like had this not happened to me, and the thought was comforting.
So I enjoyed it.
He took all the discomfort out of the act. He fucked me hard and merciless.
I wasn’t sure I’d ever properly expressed how grateful I was for that. Even though he’d probably felt weird or nervous, afraid of making me freak out again, he never let that show.
It was good until it wasn’t.
Until it wasn’t.
Forever.
Immortality granted me forever, and I hated it. Hated it so fucking much.
Not in every context, but in this one.
━━━━━
It was several hours before I made the decision to return to my house.
Mason’s car was gone when I pulled into the driveway, and the tightness in my chest finally began to dissipate—until I walked inside and saw him sitting in my living room.
I completely froze.
“I want to have a conversation with you,” he said.
“I don’t,” I forced myself to reply. My heart was beating too fast already. “Where’s your car? Were you trying to trick me into coming home?”
“Yes,” he admitted simply, causing anger to heat in my bloodstream.
“That’s fucked up.” My hands clenched into fists, my pulse in my throat. I hated how small my voice sounded.
“We need to talk, Kill.”
“Don’t call me that,” I snapped, feeling almost as cornered as I’d felt last night. Mason wasn’t moving any closer, but he didn’t need physical proximity to trap me in the corners of my own mind. My mouth had gone completely dry.
“Fine. But I don’t want to let you leave until you do this.” He stood up, making my anxiety spike. My shoulders went rigid, refusing to relax.
“Do what? What conversation could you possibly need to have?”
He paused for a few seconds, glancing away from me. He looked exhausted in a way sleep couldn’t fix. I was sure he hadn’t slept much, though. I hadn’t slept at all. “Not last night, if that’s what you’re worried about. We don’t need to talk about that shit. I understand.”
“Then what, Mason? Why the fuck are you trying to trap me in my own house?” My jaw flexed, tightened, muscles aching with tension.
“Why didn’t you let me talk to you? At the end.”
Silence claimed the room.
My heart was beating so loud in my chest, I knew he could hear it.
I swallowed before speaking, buying myself another second.
“Wh—”
“Don’t give me that bullshit, Micah.” Mason said loudly, taking a few steps closer to me. Instinctively, I walked further into the kitchen to stand at the counter by the sink, putting distance back between us. “Give me a real answer,” he demanded.
“There’s no real answer. I didn’t want to talk to you.” I kept my gaze fixed on the countertop, afraid that looking at him would undo whatever control I still had. “That’s all.”
“Do you think I’m stupid?” His voice was closer. “I know when you’re lying.”
“No, you don’t.”
“I know right now. You won’t even look me in the eyes.”
“Doesn’t change anything.” I braced my arms on the counter, staring at the piece missing from the edge, which Mason had accidentally broken off fighting me a few months ago. All violence. I forced my breathing to stay even.
“You’re a coward. Look at me. You can’t even say it.”
“You’re not entitled to an explanation.” My stomach turned.
“I’m not entitled, or you’re too afraid to—”
“Because you were killing me, and I was letting you!” I yelled, turning around. “Do you think I wanted to talk to you about that? I had to leave the way I did.”
He doesn’t know shit.
Mason didn’t answer, which only made me feel worse. More panicked. More angry.
I regretted saying anything.
The silence between us now was almost harder to endure than the argument itself.
The familiarity of him made the distance hurt worse.
“I had to,” I repeated, ribs expanding with every heavy breath.
“Kill—”
“I don’t want to talk to you.”
“I thought—”
“Get the fuck out of my house, Mason.” My face hardened into a mask, and I was glaring at Mason with all the force I could muster. But he could probably still see the slight shaking of my hands, could tell how hard I was grasping for stability.
He stepped towards me.
“No. You owe me. You fucking owe me. You know you do. You fucked up my whole fucking life, and you didn’t let me speak a word to you about it. I don’t care if you think I was killing you, because you killed me too.”
“I don’t owe you shit!” I shouted, my voice raising in volume. “I’m sorry for breaking up with you? Is that what you want me to say? Because I’m not, and I’d do it again.”
He flinched so subtly no one else would have noticed.
But I did. I’d always notice everything about him, because he used to be the only thing in the universe to me.
I’d breathed through him, my heart only beating because his did, my mind only quieted by the feeling of his fingers running through my hair in the darkness.
Never again.
“You are so sick,” Mason said, shaking his head. “So sick in the head. You think you have the right to do that to me, but you don’t. You do owe me something.”
“Get over it.”
“Did you ever even think of me after you left? Or did you—”
“Yes,” I cut him off, anger infiltrating my voice. “I thought about you every single fucking day, Ash.”
His mouth was still open like he might say something, a million emotions flickering through his irises, but he kept silent.
“Every single second of every single minute of every single hour,” I continued. “You are the only thing I’ve thought about for the past twenty two years. Until her. How could you not know that?”