Pandora blinked, trying to unsee the nightmares, to force Sam out of her thoughts, to figure out where she was, where her heart had sent her. Her spotty vision cleared. The world slowly returned to focus.
Her cheek was pressed against a cold wood floor.
The room was bathed in soft pink sunlight.
Rustling leaves and chirping birds filled her ears.
The smell of wet forest surrounded her, so familiar.
Of course, Pandora thought, sighing. Of course my fickle mind sent me here.
The tree house.
Their tree house. The only place she could ever remember feeling safe in her entire life. Not necessarily confident or strong or independent, but safe.
Pandora eased into a seated position, wincing as pain shot down her arm from the stab wound still stubbornly refusing to heal. She was light-headed from the blood loss, drained by her conversation, and achy all over. But the tree house was still deep in titan territory, and she needed to find a way out if she wanted to survive.
Groaning as her muscles screamed at her to stop, Pandora tried to flip herself over, but the floor shifted. Scraps of wood slid across the nailed-down boards. Her brows came together. She paused, reaching to pluck a broken piece from the floor, curious. It was the color of rich mahogany, shiny and polished, totally smooth aside from the jagged edges. She recognized it immediately.
Jax’s guitar.
As many times as she’d tried, she’d never been able to banish the image of his fingers moving confidently over strings, of his guitar resting in his lap while he softly sang, of those deep saltwater eyes watching her beneath the curtain of black hair that always fell over his forehead while he played, lost in the moment.
Slowly, Pandora looked up.
Jax watched her from across the room, eyes laced with red veins, skin puffy, cheeks wet. He was completely still, surrounded by the broken pieces of his guitar and the shredded fabric of the pillows they’d always kept stacked across the floor. A curtain of feathers still floated in the air around him, gently falling. Those strong fingers were clenched around the latest victim of his anger, purple silk ripped to shreds by his fury.
Everything became clear in an instant.
Her subconscious hadn’t brought her to the tree house like she’d thought.
It had brought her to Jax.
Even after everything, he was still her home.
Her safe place.
Her person.
“You’re alive,” he gasped, words little more than a puff of air. The corners of his lips twitched. “I knew you’d somehow find a way to stay alive.”
Pandora swallowed, unable to control the rage clenching her insides, at him, at her heart, at everything. “No thanks to you,” she seethed, glancing around at the destruction littering the tree house floor. “I like what you’ve done to the place. Much more fitting.”
He dropped the shredded fabric and took a step toward her, then stopped immediately, uncertain. “I thought…”
“Thought you’d come here and throw a tantrum about how unfair your life is while my father and eleven other titans surrounded my house and tried to kill me?” she snapped, then let out a snort. “Grow up, Jax.”
“Dory—”
“Don’t Dory me,” she interrupted, stepping closer. Anger heated her veins. Her body burned with the spark. And she liked it, the warmth of rage. She was so over the frozen shards of sadness, of pity, of despair. So she let herself feel, let herself go. “You don’t get to feel sorry for yourself, Jax. You don’t get to hide away in our tree house and wallow in self-pity. You don’t get to come here and scream and cry and smash your guitar and rip apart our pillows and whine about how awful you feel. Because you know what? You’re alive. No one’s trying to kill you. You’re not the key to some mystical prison. You’re not the person whose death might save the world. You’re nobody. You’re no one. And you know what? From where I’m standing, that’s a pretty freaking awesome thing to be.”
Pandora released a heavy puff of air, relieved to at least have gotten something off her chest. Jax watched her, mouth falling open. But he had nothing to say. Which was fine, because Pandora was more than happy to keep going.
“You know what?” she spat, not giving him time to answer as she stepped forward, cornering him. “You’re a coward, Jax. A coward. You can’t make a decision. Do you love me? Do you want to kill me? Do you want to help me? Or do you want to be a good little boy and do what the titans are telling you to do? You don’t even know, so you do nothing. You find me after your initiation to try to stop me from running, and then you let me go. You follow me for four years but don’t do anything because you want to give me a small second to live. You finally do what you’re supposed to do and hand me over to the titans, and then you spend every morning sleeping outside my cell, begging for forgiveness. You know they’re setting a trap to try to kill me, and you hide here, so you don’t have to face it. Because you are a coward.”
Pandora shoved him in the chest.
Jax stumbled backward, unable to respond because he knew she was right.
She shoved him again, because it felt good.
His back hit a wall. Nowhere else to go.
Pandora sniffled, not aware that there were tears streaming down her cheeks until she tasted the salt on her lips and felt the clog tightening her throat.
“They held me down, Jax, like a caged animal. They surrounded me. Their hands were everywhere. I couldn’t get away. And my father stabbed me, not through the heart like he wanted, but he tried again. And you weren’t there. For some reason, I always thought you’d be there, that in the end, you’d find a way to be with me. But you were here. And I was alone. And I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know how to get out. I didn’t have any options, and I didn’t understand what I was doing. So I…I…I used the shadows, and I, and my father, and—”
Pandora screamed, releasing her frustration.
She was sure her eyes were wild, crazed as she searched the room.
“You need to pick a side, Jax. You need to,” she begged. “Because I can’t do this alone, not anymore. I’m weak, and I’m tired, and I’m still bleeding. I can’t escape them, not again, not without help. So you need to choose.”
She knelt, grabbed a broken piece of guitar, and pressed the point of the stake to the center of her chest, right over her heart. The spot was four inches to the side of the wound still bleeding below her collarbone, the mark her father had left. Pandora turned, facing Jax, and walked closer. He was mute, immobile, watching her in mounting horror. She didn’t care. It was time. It was past time. So she grabbed his hands and held them around the wood pressing into her skin. She stepped closer until the broken shard of guitar was the only thing between them. A bead of blood trickled down her chest from where the edge cut into her flesh.
Jax dropped his gaze to it and stared.
He swallowed, jaw clenched tight.
The air thickened, heavy with the history pressing in around them. So many memories in this spot, so many memories flickering in the depths of their eyes. His lips on her skin. Her hands in his hair. Their bodies pressed tight. Sighs a sweet song as they escaped into the silence of the night, slipping up into the sky.
“Choose,” Pandora demanded. “The titans are on their way. I know they are. They must sense that I’m here, and I don’t think I can outrun them on my own. Don’t let them hold me down like they did before, Jax. Don’t let them treat me like a monster. Either kill me, right here, right now—give me that little ounce of mercy—or help me, really, honestly help me. Because I have eleven months before I turn twenty-one, eleven months before the clock runs out, and I intend to use them. I’m not going down without a fight. I can kill him, Jax, I know I can. I can end this, but not on my own.”
His hands shook.
She wouldn’t release him.
She licked her lips and swallowed, holding his gaze as she passed her life into his hands. “You choose, Jax, because I need to know what side you’re on. For real this time. Either kill me now or help me. I don’t even care anymore. Just choose.”
His hands trembled as he tightened them around the wooden shard. He held her gaze, unable to blink. The muscles in his face spasmed, a visceral reaction to the agony of his indecision, to the way it tortured him. Jax swallowed once, Adam’s apple bobbing slowly as a bead of sweat made its way down his neck. The wood scratched her chest, drawing more blood she couldn’t afford to lose.
For a moment, Pandora really thought he was going to kill her.
And then he screamed, a guttural sound that tore its way up his throat, releasing all of the tension and torment that had coiled his insides for four years. He jerked his hands away from hers and threw the broken slice of guitar back onto the ground. Shoulders heaving, he took the deep breath of a drowning man who’d finally broken the surface to find fresh air.
And then his seafoam eyes found hers.
He lifted his hands to her face.
He held her as if he never wanted to let go, digging his fingers into her hair, brushing his thumbs across her cheeks, claiming her.
“I’ve been an idiot,” he murmured.
Pandora raised her brows, fighting the smile that urged to break out across her lips. “No, you’ve been an asshole.”
He snorted, edges of his mouth twitching. “You’re right. I’ve been an asshole.”
Hallelujah, she thought, he’s finally admitted what we’ve both known all along. I’m always right. And he’s a jerk.
“I’ve been an asshole and a coward, and it ends now,” he continued, voice impassioned, a sweeter sound than any song he’d ever serenaded her with. “I don’t deserve your forgiveness—”
“You don’t have it,” she cut in, because they both needed to be honest, completely honest with each other. And after the wounds that had cut so deep, she didn’t trust him. Even if he helped, she wasn’t sure she could truly trust him again.
“I know,” he murmured, closing his eyes and holding them shut for a moment. “I know. But I’ll do everything I can to prove to you that I mean what I’m saying. That I choose you. That I’ll help you. That you can trust me. That I love you, because I always have, Dory, and I always will. And I know we can win this fight. I know that together, somehow, we can figure this out. We can win.”
Pandora stepped back, lifting her hands to remove his from her cheeks, and held his fingers tight as she widened the space between them. “I need you to promise me something, Jax.”
“Anything,” he said instantly.
“If we don’t win…” She paused, taking a deep breath. “If eleven months go by and we can’t find another way, I want you to be the one who ends it.”
“Dory,” he implored, squeezing her fingers. “I can’t.”
“No.” She shook her head. It wasn’t his decision—it was hers. He owed her that much. “I won’t be the end of the world, and I’m not afraid to die if I have to, if it’s the only thing that will keep the monster I just saw contained. I only want the chance to fight before I roll over in defeat. And if there’s no way, I need you to do it, Jax. Not my father. Not a stranger. You.”
He stilled.
And then he nodded.
Once, but firm.
And before he could say anything else, her knees gave out, and Pandora stumbled, vision growing spotty as her body reached its limit. She was exhausted from the days of running, the lack of sleep, the fights, the stab wound, the memories that pounded her to the edge. And it hit her all at once. Just like that, every ounce of strength she possessed vanished. The ground gave out beneath her.
But Jax was there to catch her. She landed in his arms, and he cradled her against his chest, lifting her easily from the ground. Out of habit, her head fell into the nook of his neck and stayed there. She wrapped one of her arms around his shoulders, and the other, too weak to adjust, remained limp against her stomach. His gaze dropped to the stab wound by her collarbone, eyes widening as though noticing it for the first time. And then he ran, across the tree house in an instant, and launched out the door. He landed on the ground smoothly with his titan grace. Before she could blink, they were zipping through the forest. But even in her drowsy state, she could tell they were going the wrong way, were going toward the houses.
“We need to get out of here, out of the enclave,” she wheezed. With each step, her shoulder ached, and more blood spurted from the wound.
“Yeah, I got that,” Jax answered in a huff. “But you need a bandage. We need a plan. And I know for a fact that my parents are currently wandering aimlessly across the mountains, searching for a target they’re not going to find. I can sense them miles away, which means my house is empty.”
“They haven’t picked up on my location?” Pandora asked, surprised. She’d fallen out of the shadows at least five minutes ago, completely exposed.
But Jax just grinned. The arrogance flashing in his eyes gave her pause, comforted her in a strange way. Because she’d seen that overconfidence before, that little roguish spark, and it felt normal. On a day where her world had flipped upside down yet again, when everything between them was odd and uncomfortable and uncharted, that single moment felt normal. And she cherished the ease of it.
“I learned a few things since you left all those years ago,” he said as he leapt over a fallen tree and continued to swerve through the maze of the woods. “One of them being a handy little trick only initiated trackers know. How to shield myself and how to shield the space around me. The titans have no idea where you are, because the second you dropped into my pity party unannounced, I hid you from them.”
She beamed. “Jackson Rodriguez, I could kiss you. If I wasn’t still furious with you, of course.”
He lifted a single brow. “We both know that’s never stopped you before.”
But his teasing didn’t comfort her, didn’t amuse her. It sobered her. Her gaze fell away from his face to stare ahead at the house becoming more distinct through the trees.
They couldn’t pretend as if nothing had happened.
They couldn’t sink back into their banter, into their relationship.
Jax had betrayed her.
He’d cut her to the core.
And she’d meant what she said—she didn’t forgive him. Not this fast. Not this easily. He had a long way to go to prove himself. And to be honest, she wasn’t sure he ever would.
The mood shifted.
Jax could read her, just like always. So he closed the distance in silence, only putting her down once they’d snuck inside his home. She collapsed on the kitchen island, dizzy and drained. Jax came running back in with a fistful of rags, a bottle of vodka, and duct tape.
“Oh, dear god,” Pandora mumbled.
Jax glared at her. “Normally, we heal a lot faster than this. I don’t know what’s going on with you, and I don’t have any experience with first aid. So, movie knowledge is all I’m working with. Deal with it.”
Before Pandora could mutter another word, Jax pulled a pair of scissors from a drawer and cut down the middle of her shirt. Sure, it wasn’t anything he’d never seen before, and she was covered in a mass of sticky blood, but nerves still raced through her as he peeled the shirt from her skin, baring her chest. Their eyes met in a brief, sizzling exchange. He swallowed, tearing his attention away as the air grew warm. There was no time. But he still paused, hands trembling an inch above her skin. Then he pressed his fingers to the wound.
Pandora hissed with the pain.
He yanked his hand back, unsure.
“Just do it,” she grunted, forcing the words through gritted teeth.
Jax nodded. He spun on his heels, soaked a rag with water, and washed the area around the cut as well as he could. Then he lifted the handle of vodka and unscrewed the top before taking a long chug. With her free hand, Pandora grabbed the bottle and followed suit, choking as the acid slid down her throat. Without warning, he tipped the bottle.
She screamed as the alcohol burned.
Jax held her down, pressing his entire body against her shoulders as she bucked. He didn’t relent. He wiped the wound clean with another wet rag and repeated the process two more times, ignoring as she punched and kicked and did everything she could think of to get away.
Oh, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!
Pandora beat her feet and her fists against the stone countertop beneath her, whimpering as the agony coursed through her.
“We’re almost done,” Jax mumbled, gaze completely focused.
He bundled a clean rag into a ball and pressed it against her chest. After adding one more, he snatched the duct tape, then secured the towels to her chest with one piece after another, wrapping the silvery bands all the way around her back to make sure the makeshift bandage wouldn’t fall off, to make sure it was secure.
Pandora couldn’t move.
To be honest, she could hardly feel the pain anymore.
She was somewhere beyond, hovering between consciousness and oblivion.
Jax lifted her from the table gently, kissing her brow softly before pulling away, gaze pained. She didn’t have the energy to snap at him, but she didn’t need to. He realized the moment his lips pressed against her forehead that he’d lost that privilege a long time ago, lost the right to touch her so freely. The apology was written across his face, deeper than words could say. So he didn’t say anything. He carried her through his house and into the garage, where he pulled the cover from his motorcycle.
She should have known, should have guessed.
There was no road in and out of the enclave. Supplies arrived by helicopter, brought in by government officials—the only ones aware of the top-secret location. But motorcycles, dirt bikes, they were nimble enough to carve a route through the forest, out of the valley, and into the mountains beyond.
“I’ll get us out, I promise,” Jax whispered, tone intense as he gripped her tight, holding her securely. “Just tell me where to go.”
Pandora passed out before she got the chance to answer.