CHAPTER 89 JAMESON
JAMESON
Jameson had watched Emily Laughlin die. There was a time when that had been the core truth of his existence.
Before Avery, the fact that he’d stood over Emily, sure she was faking, as she’d died had formed the basis of how he’d seen himself.
Grayson had brought Emily cliff-jumping, but Jameson was the one who’d watched her gasp for air.
The one who’d just stood there while she died.
Except she hadn’t.
Emily’s death had torn Jameson’s and Grayson’s world apart. It had destroyed them. And now, Emily was right there, alive. She’d been there for over an hour, calling Jameson Jamie, touching him, looking deep into his eyes.
And for over an hour, Jameson had given Emily nothing.
He knew her well enough to know that if there was one thing Emily could not tolerate, it was being ignored. So that was exactly what Jameson did. She wanted a reaction. He refused to give her one.
“You watched me die like I was nothing.” Emily wasn’t giving up. “But I wasn’t nothing to you, Jamie. And I certainly wasn’t nothing to your brother.”
Grayson was still unconscious. Jameson refused to even look toward his brother. Let Emily think he couldn’t even hear her.
“It was never you for me, Jamie. I think you know that.” Emily walked up to Grayson’s unconscious form. “It was always him.”
“That’s why you fixated on Gigi,” Slate practically growled. “She’s Grayson’s sister.” Slate gave Emily what Jameson wouldn’t—but Emily didn’t want Slate’s attention. “And why,” Mattias Slater continued, “when you had us captive during the Grandest Game, you kept asking Gigi about Lyra.”
“Grayson grieved me.” Emily pushed Grayson’s hair out of his face. “I know he did.”
And you couldn’t stand the idea of him moving on, Jameson thought.
“You want to say something.” Emily turned back toward him. Jameson stared right through her. “I know you’re in there somewhere, Jamie. Isn’t there anything you’d like to ask me? How I did it? Why I did it?”
Jameson didn’t need to know why or how. He didn’t even need to know how much longer he’d have to ignore Emily before she lost her composure and made a real move, the kind that could open her up to a counterattack.
Jameson didn’t need anything from her.
“This is getting pathetic,” Slate said. “Give it up.”
“Pathetic? An Ascendant of the Gilded Blade?” Emily kept her voice light as she whirled on him.
“I’m not the one in chains,” she said. “And if I’m so pathetic, Mattias, how did I threaten Eve into shooting you?
She didn’t want to, you know. Everyone has a limit, and you were hers—until you weren’t. Pity she’s not a better shot.”
“Bitch.”
“Me or her?” Emily said innocently. “I honestly didn’t think she’d have it in her.
I had a mind to choose my own sister after Gigi turned me down, but Eve was right there, and when my lookalike niece shot you?
When she pulled that trigger?” Emily turned back toward Jameson.
“That’s when I knew she’d be fully capable of putting Avery down for me, too. ”
Jameson bit back a roar. Ignore her. Ignore her. Ignore her.
“There are years when all of the Candidates survive the Crucible,” Emily murmured, “and years when they don’t.”
Everything in Jameson wanted to fight, to thrash, to pull at his chains and try to lock a hand around Emily’s throat, but he didn’t. He went elsewhere in his mind—to a rooftop in Paris, to the edge of the ocean in Tahiti.
To you, Heiress. Jameson closed his eyes and willed himself deeper and deeper into memory, into daydreams, going somewhere nothing could touch him.
Time still passed, but he didn’t feel it, didn’t even hear Emily.
It was like she truly didn’t exist—and then, suddenly, she was pouring something down his throat.
“If you won’t talk to me, Jameson,” she whispered, “you won’t talk at all.”