Harry blew me another kiss goodnight. I caught it, sticking it to my cheek as I closed his door, and as it shut into place and I was finally free to let my thoughts wander, I cried. The gash on my head needed a new bandage now, and it had been hurting all night, but not as deeply as my heart.
Until now, I’d hoped, maybe even believed, that when David moved past the grief of losing his wife, we could be friends. After he broke his promise to me that day when he left for five months, I never wanted anything more than to be friends, but then it changed. Finding out we have a son and learning more about David—the man, the lawyer, the ex-vampire, the loving father—things had started changing for me. Even after I found out he was the impure soul, something about him always brought me back. All those times my common-sense mind saw the bad, my heart seemed to look past it, right into the good, right into the green eyes and the boyish smile. I was smitten with him, in truth, no matter how much I tried to fight it.
Until now.
It was the final straw, doing what he did to me today, and now that Harry was in bed, I could finally just breathe and decide what to do from here. I knew I’d have to leave, but I didn’t want to leave Harry, and if I stayed, David would eventually make me love him again. I was in the abuse cycle here, and it was as plain as the nose on my face. There were only two ways out: the door, now, before things got worse and he started thinking he owned me; or in a body bag later.
And being Lilithian didn’t change a thing. There were ways to kill my kind—a removed head, for example—and at this point, I wouldn’t put it past David to go crazy and decapitate me. What’s worse is, I knew I wouldn’t be able to do anything, even if he was human, because when he hurt me, all my instincts to survive shut down. I panicked. And I didn’t know how to stop him.
“I know that look,” Mike said, leaning on the doorframe to his bedroom.
I snapped out of my own head and shook it all off, forcing a smile as I headed for the stairs. “What look?”
“Ara.” He grabbed my arm softly to stop me. “Don’t, okay.”
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t leave.”
I felt my brows pull in confusion. “How could you know…”
“I’ve known you forever,” he said simply, walking backwards as he pulled me toward his bedroom, closing the door once we were inside.
“What are we doing?” I said, flicking on the light.
“You need to listen to me.” He took both of my arms and moved me to the bed, sitting me down.
“Won’t Em be upset if we’re in here—”
“No. She told me to talk to you.”
I thrust my shoulders back and lifted my chin. Whatever they wanted to say, it wouldn’t change things. I knew they’d all side with David, but I was smarter than that. “Mike, you have to understand—”
“And I do.” He sat down on the ground, his back beside my legs against the bed. “Believe me. The first thing I want you to do is walk out that door and take Harry with you. This is not the life I want for you.”
“Then why are you talking me into staying?”
He turned his head a fraction and looked up at me, familiar caramel eyes bringing me home. “Because this isn’t going to be your life. David, for what little you actually know about him, isn’t an abusive man—”
“My head says otherwise—”
“Yes, but twenty years tells me another story.”
“People change.”
“No, they don’t. Not at their core.”
“Then you explain that to me,” I said, pointing off to nothing as though it was the courtyard, “because that was a profound and very sudden change—”
“I can’t explain it.” He rubbed his face, pushing his hair back before looking at me again. “I wish I could. But all I can say is that there is a reason he reacted to you that way, and it isn’t normal for him. It wasn’t him—”
“I’ve heard enough.” I stood up, insulted.
“Ara, just wait.” He grabbed my arm again. “I know you’re upset. But you just need to stop and think for a moment, because if you actually do, you’ll see that you don’t want to run.”
“Funny, because—”
“You don’t. You just don’t want to get hurt again, and I know you want to understand what drove him to that so, please”—he begged with his eyes—“this is not for his sake. It’s for yours—for the girl that might one day remember everything. If you knew what caused that. If…”
“Why won’t you just tell me?” I said, holding his eye. “If there’s a reason—”
“If you look at him, look right into his face, Ara, you’ll see the reason.”
What reason could anyone have for doing that?
Then again, if I really thought about it, David wasn’t typically violent. I had spent enough time with him now to know that wasn’t his nature. Or maybe not his nature since he became human. So what had driven him to do that to me—to someone he was trying to win back?
I knew I should be running. I should be out that door, and I could hear myself screaming at me to do so. But Mike was right. There was something in David’s eyes when he hurt me today, and if I was honest, that wasn’t what scared me. That wasn’t why I was running.
In truth, I was running because I couldn’t understand why I’d let him do that to me. I could have fought him. Yes, what he did was abusive, but I wasn’t a victim here. It was messed up. All of it. But I was ten times stronger than him and, though I was scared and shocked and it took me a moment to understand what was going on today, I could have ended it. I could’ve stopped him.
“Okay,” I conceded, nodding solemnly to myself. “I’ll… I’ll give it a week. I’ll calm down and take a step back, for Harry’s sake, and only because David has never laid a hand on him, but if something doesn’t change, I’m out.”
“Thank you,” he said with a nod.
I nodded in return, all my plans derailing right there in front of me.
“For what it’s worth,” he added, opening his door for me, “in about half an hour, he’s gonna be feeling guilty as shit.” He laughed then. “And I’m talking sobbing-his-heart-out-razorblade-to-the-wrist kind of guilty.”
“Why half an hour?” I checked my watch.
“Just”—he winked at me—“trust me.”