Chapter Forty-Two
“Is that how it works?” Rook asked, much too perky for someone who was dead half an hour ago. He bounced around like a hyperactive child at a carnival. “You just die and wake up feeling fine a little while later? I feel fucking amazing.”
I didn’t answer as I walked beside him toward his apartment. I glanced every so often though, at the blood ruining his shirt, matted in his hair, and stained on my clothes. But my aversion to it couldn’t win against the quiet rage simmering inside of me.
It started after the all-consuming relief that he came back to me. Then I saw the charred circle around us, the reminder left behind that I let her go. She hadn’t fought. She hadn’t escaped. I let her go.
Once Rook could stand, I kissed him like he was the only thing left in the world, and then I realized he was.
Death was gone, vanished like the specter she was, and there was nothing left but him—alive, with me, yet not fully mine.
“Austin, you still with me?” he asked, smiling until he saw my face and lost the expression. “What’s wrong?”
“She was there,” I said. “She was right there. I missed my chance!”
He stopped and stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Thank you, by the way, for saving me. You didn’t have to—”
“But I did have to.” My eyes darted up and clashed with his, and for a moment he looked so confused about why I turned my anger on him. “I saved you because I love you.”
“I know.”
My heart raged in my chest, pounding so hard I could hear blood in my ears, so hard it made me sick. He knew. Of course he knew. And what did that get me? Nothing. Nothing real. Not a promise.
“No, you don’t! I had one fucking chance and I didn’t kill her because I love you. I love you. I love you!”
He stumbled back a step as I advanced toward him and slammed him against the wall of the nearest building. I held him there with one forearm pressed against his throat. He could have fought me off, but he stayed anyway, waiting for whatever fury was inside me. Took it without question.
“Say it back!” I demanded.
His eyes widened. “That’s why you’re so pissed? You let Death get away because of me and I won’t tell you I love you?”
“I’m pissed because I know it’s not one-sided, and I gave up everything I worked for, and you won’t fucking say it!”
“Did you give up everything?” he asked, easing against the bricks like I hadn’t pushed him there, crossing his arms. “What happens now?”
I wanted to crack that calm demeanor, that absolute lack of reaction to the way my blood boiled at the sight of him. I gripped the front of his shirt, but he didn’t flinch. He smiled that lazy, baiting smile he wore so well.
“Say it.”
“I’ll tell you what happens now,” he said.
“You run your business, I run mine, and you keep chasing Death because you don’t know what else to do with your life.
Do you know what happens when you try to smother an obsession?
It comes back stronger. You have nothing else, and you won’t let yourself have more than that. You love revenge, not me.”
“That’s bullshit! I can have both.”
“I’m telling you that you can’t.” He swiped aside the hand that was fisted in his shirt and smacked his palm into the center of my chest. “You want me to say it? Okay. I love you, Austin. I love you so much it consumes every fucking thought. I love you so much that you were the last thing I thought about while I was bleeding out on the street! You want to be pissed off? Be pissed at yourself for only giving me part of you.”
My breath came sharply, then caught. He stared at me like he had a long time ago, like we were practically strangers, and I might have thought he was lying about loving me if the look in his eyes wasn’t so cracked and devastated. “What the fuck does that even mean?”
“It means I’m not going to be shoved in a drawer to take out whenever you don’t have more important things to think about. You want my love, then fucking earn it. But you won’t because you love power and obsession a hell of a lot more than you do me.”
I gritted my teeth and the small distance between us gaped like a mouth about to swallow me. “That’s not true.”
He shrugged and smirked at me, a look that made my cold insides seethe. “Okay. Give it up. You stop sticking your fingers into every corner of this city, you stop chasing Death, I’ll sell the club, and we’ll run off into the sunset.”
“You’re being ridiculous.” What was even happening between us right now? We should be celebrating the fact that he was alive. I could deal with my feelings about Death later, preferably in the quiet, in his arms, in my bed. We shouldn’t be fighting like this.
“And that’s why you can’t have me.” He turned to leave and I grasped his elbow.
“Where the hell are you going?” I asked.
“Home.”
“Are you…breaking up with me after I just saved your life?”
“You chose to save my life, so if you’re planning to blame me for your impending identity crisis, fuck off.” He pulled away from me and sauntered down the street.
“Don’t walk away from me!” My anger burned through me like acid, and any happy emotion I had left seeped through the holes it left behind. “Rook. Carter! Don’t fucking leave!”
He stopped and I could see the huge sigh he heaved. “You know where to find me when you decide you actually want me,” he said with one last glance. “See you around, England.”
I watched him disappear, my legs unwilling to move me toward him or away from him. If I stayed here, I could convince myself that I was a compass, and that the needle still pointed to him. I could stay on course.
He’ll be back. One of them piped up when I’d stayed there too long.
“He won’t.” I finally moved one foot, then the other, turning to go in the opposite direction. There was no point in following him.
He loves you. He won’t let you go that easily.
Are you okay?
It might have been the first time a ghost had asked me that question. The thought that they cared about me was absurd, but perhaps I’d gotten many things wrong.
“Of course I’m not okay!” I snapped.
I went home and let myself crumble in my bed. Death was gone. Rook was gone. That fucking tattoo burned like a brand, a stark reminder that I’d somehow fucked up both of the things I wanted most.
I glanced at the laptop sitting on my nightstand and thought about logging on to The Looking Glass for something to keep my hands and my mind busy.
Death was real, and I knew for certain she could be killed.
She wasn’t an untouchable immortal. She wasn’t a mysterious threat.
I had the Prague collection and more ambition than she could fathom.
All hope wasn’t lost.
Fuck Rook. I didn’t need him. He was something fun and distracting to pass the time, but I had other goals I could pursue.
My life wasn’t empty without him, and perhaps we had both overestimated his importance.
Let him stew about how little he meant to me.
We could both move on from this like nothing had ever happened.
We had an adventure, we stopped a serial killer, and now the fun was over.
But I was never one for fun, was I? Work. Power. A hint of obsession.
I didn’t need him.
My world would continue to turn.