13. Olivia
Olivia
“Damnit, Spitfire!” JJ hisses right on my tail as I’m trying to exit the damn building without this confrontation again.
Isn’t one showdown in a week enough? Ugh. Apparently not with him. He wants to talk this out or kill me? I’m not fucking sure. All I know is, I want the hell out of his orbit ASAP.
“Leave me alone,” I grumble. “Isn’t it enough you’ve forced me into stupid tutoring sessions after tampering with my grades?” I growl, stopping abruptly and turning toward him, and locking my gaze on his.
There’s that softness again. The twinkle in his glossy eyes that’s filled with desperation and wanting. Feelings I don’t quite understand coming from him. Not after what he did. Even if he denied it before.
But I’ll never trust them again. Even if I have to pretend.
He huffs, looking up and down the hallway with a frown. Before I can shake his hands off my upper arm, he pulls me into an empty, dark office and pushes me up against the wall with force.
“What the hell?” I hiss, trying to push him off me, but it doesn’t work. He grips me hard, holding me in place as he looks me over.
“I knew there was something about you,” he whispers longingly. “When I saw you at the fight in the bathroom. You were so familiar, yet not… I couldn’t put my finger on it. But now, I know…” He trails off, emotions clogging up.
“So, you really fucked with my grades?” I grit out, ignoring the way he feels being so close to me.
His breath hitches. “You disappeared, Spitfire.” He swallows hard, squeezing his eyes shut. “I can’t believe I’m saying that name again.”
“Then don’t,” I spit out, trying to get out of his grip again, but he holds tighter. Rougher.
“Livy,” he murmurs with desperation. “I had to get your attention somehow. You were holed up in your room, and Simon wouldn’t let me through.
You weren’t answering my texts or calls.
And I couldn’t find you after you took off.
We need to talk. I need to know everything.
You said we killed you and I—” His mouth flops open and closed a few times as he holds something inside, but I see the pain of my death written on his paling face. “This doesn’t feel real.”
“Wasn’t that your first clue that I didn’t want to talk?
” I ask stubbornly. “There’s a reason I avoided you.
A reason you didn’t know I still existed.
What? Are you here now to finish what you all started?
Huh?” I raise my brows, a fire brewing beneath my skin and aching to take him out and run away.
But I stop when hurt flashes across his face and confusion contorts his features.
Over the last five years, I’ve been taught to observe people and truly try to understand them. I’ve been trained in combat and weaponry. I’ve learned to read people like a damn book. And JJ? He’s confused as hell.
Just like me.
I don’t fully understand what I’m feeling on the inside as my stomach sinks further toward my feet.
My mind twists and turns over the memories.
They play relentlessly. Torturing me with the look in his brown eyes as he held me by the shoulder and aided in my would-be death. Vicious. Lifeless. Fucking soulless.
He wasn’t the same JJ staring back at me. Eyes glistening with tears and regret.
The scar across my throat burns as a reminder of the trauma I suffered through. I survived. The fire. The knife. Everything that was said that night plays in my mind like a wicked reminder of what I’ve been trying to forget.
“Finish the job?” he croaks. “I don’t understand.
But I want to. I want to understand everything.
I won’t even hold it against you, Spitfire.
That you were gone, and we thought you were dead, and we mourned you.
Still mourn you. Fuck. Please,” he begs with tears falling down his cheeks.
“Please talk to me. Tell me why. Tell me how. Tell me everything.”
My knees weaken with each emotion he lets out.
More sobs rise in his throat, spilling between his quivering lips.
A vulnerability sits there, staring back at me when he leans his forehead against mine.
A shiver runs through me at the contact, and I realize I’m witnessing a man falling apart, unrestrained, holding tightly to me as if I’m the lifeline keeping him in this world.
A lump forms in my throat, but I swallow it down. I can’t allow other people’s emotions to infect me and cloud my decisions. Numbness spreads across my flesh, starting at my toes and working up my legs. Confusing thoughts erupt in my mind, contorting deep inside me.
Was it JJ? Hux? Mack? It would have been out of character for them to hurt me.
But their eyes! Their eyes were the same. The same shade. The same shapes. Everything about that night is crystal clear. Every interaction. Every voice I heard. Or didn’t hear.
My brain pounds as a headache starts. No! No! He did it. They killed me. I saw them with my own eyes. He can’t sob and confess his innocence when he’s not.
So why is he confused about why I’m still here? He doesn’t want to finish the job? Is he acting?
Is he… Truthful? Lying?
God! I can’t fucking tell. My palms sweat. My fingers fucking ache. I need my trusty friend Jack Daniel’s again. I need to hide and never face these boys again.
I want to disappear.
I blow out a breath, trying to count to ten and calm myself down. This is all becoming too much too fast. Too fucking real. Too overwhelming.
Those brown eyes gaze straight through the green contacts concealing the color he once knew, penetrate directly through my soul, and prod for answers.
Answers I don’t have.
My body breaks out in another cold sweat, bringing every ounce of emotion to the surface until tears burn the backs of my eyes and threaten to spill over, but I don’t let them. I won’t give JJ the satisfaction of getting to me.
I squeeze my eyes shut, concealing everything from him. JJ has trained under Franco to analyze people and their actions. He can probably read me like a damn book. More than that, he was always the more perceptive one. Able to suss out the liars and cheats with one look. Like he read their minds.
“You were there that night.” A quiver doesn’t conceal anything in my voice as I say it aloud. “You…you, Hux and Mack. You were there when…when Franco slit my throat and—” I roll my lips together to keep them from trembling more.
God fucking damn it. Why can’t I open my eyes and stare him down? Why can’t I face this monster who left me to die? Instead of becoming a whimpering girl who is on the verge of crying.
I’m better than this. I’m strong and capable. I can do this. Right? For fuck’s sake. Why am I such a weenie around them? They’re a job. A damn job! I have to buck up and play this like the agent I am.
I am Agent Seven.
I got this.
Maybe.
“No!” His frantic voice echoes off the walls. “We weren’t in town, Liv. What are you even talking about?” Panic edges into his voice, climbing an octave and brimming with every emotion under the sun. It pierces my aching, confused heart, sinking deep and taking hold.
My eyes pop open immediately, tears wetting my heavy lashes.
How dare he deny what they did?
“Yes, you were. I saw you. I heard you!” I raise my voice, attempting to get away from him again, but he won’t let me.
His grip tightens, and his forehead presses heavier into mine, confining me to this room.
This spot. Just us. “You were there!” I whisper-shout through the emotions barreling through me.
Were they really gone?
“You didn’t,” he breathes. “Me and Mack and Hux were in Vegas. The only one who left at any time was Hux because Franco needed him somewhere else, but he didn’t come back here.” My spine stiffens. “We weren’t here, Livy. Think back. Remember? We left—”
“We’ve got to go to Vegas,” Mack grumbles. “It’s so dumb. I don’t want to leave you.” He snuggles his face into my neck, forcing me to giggle.
“Mack. It’ll be okay,” I breathe through my laughs. “You’re going on a mission. Like true little heirs.”
Hux scoffs. “If I had my way, I’d stay here.” His eyes dip down my body, lust pouring off him.
“Yeah, I bet you would,” I quip.
“No.” I attempt to shake my head. “No. That’s not true. You’re a fucking liar!” I shout, struggling against him as my lungs tighten. “A liar! You came back! You came back, and you did this!” I cry out, shaking my head and refusing to believe the lies spilling from his lips.
“Breathe, Spitfire. Fucking breathe for me,” he says, clasping my face between his palms and forcing me to look at him. “We’ll figure this out, okay?”
“No! There’s nothing to figure out, Jasper,” I spit his name with all the venom I can muster. “You killed me. You, Hux, Mack, and Franco came to my home, sliced our throats, and left us to die in the fire you set.”
“Look at me, baby,” JJ grits out, forcing my gaze to his.
“Really fucking look at me,” he full-body sobs.
“Do you think… Do you think that we would do that? That we’d—” He stops short and licks his lips.
“That we’d ever consider doing that. We fucking love you.
We mourned you. We weren’t the same after you died… after we had to bury you.”
“You didn’t even cry at my funeral,” I whimper. “You didn’t…”
“How…how do you know that?” he asks, brushing his thumb softly against the scars on my cheek.
I immediately look away, hating the goosebumps spreading across my flesh. The seeds of doubt worm their way into my skull. I saw what I saw. Heard what I heard. But…did I? They wore masks. But their eyes. They were the same shade, with the same sparkle.
I don’t answer his question. Every ounce of me is spent and ready to return to bed, but I can’t.
Now, I have to face this new reality of JJ knowing exactly who I am and being responsible for my grades.
I could skip all the tutoring sessions and fail out of this stupid college, but somehow, I know Jonathan would punish me for it.
Somehow, he’d get me back in here as someone else, doing the same investigation.