“What?” He stops pacing to look at me.
“If you don’t untie me right now. I’m going to scream.” I stare him down with a confidence I don’t feel.
Jace sighs. “We both know you won’t. Screaming won’t do a thing. No one will hear you. Your room is soundproof.”
He shuffles closer, putting a knee on the bed.
Come on, Jace.
The next thing I know, he’s straddling me.
“You’re so stubborn.” He chuckles. “Isobel, you need to listen to me.”
“Fuck you, Jace.”
His hand covers my mouth, “Shut. Up.”
I open my mouth and bite the palm of his hand. He barely flinches.
Deranged psycho.
I bite harder.
“You’re a monster!” I’m not sure the words even make sense to him.
He pulls away, hurt strewn across his features. We stare at each other in silence.
“You sound just likeher.” His voice is low and rough. “My mother. She left when I was eight. She told me that she didn’t want this life. Couldn’t watch Gideon turn me into amonster,like him.”
My eyes scan his face. He looks…small. Almost childlike. His face is open, and I can see the young boy who just wanted his mom and her love.
“Did she ever come back?”
His head gives the smallest shake. “No. My father made sure of that.” He exhales, slow and controlled, forcing the air out.
“I’m not a monster, Iz. I’ve worked hard to not be what he wants. Some fuckingclone. I know I have my faults, but I would never have a hand in killing the people I love. Not like Tex.”
My chest constricts.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
Jace pushes himself off me.
“The fact that you thought I was capable of having someone I considered a brother murdered…I’ve never been so enraged in my life.” His words are clipped as he keeps his back to me.
He rakes a hand through his hair, making it stick up in wild, uneven tufts.
“I’ve done terrible things,” he continues. “I’ve hurt people who deserved it. I’ve crossed lines I can’t uncross.” His jaw tightens. “But I don’t kill the innocent. I don’t sacrifice my own.”
He finally turns back around.
His eyes are burning, not drunk, not unfocused. Furious. Wounded.
“And you looked at me, and decided I was just like him.”
I swallow the lump in my throat. “I didn’t?—”
“You did.” He cuts in. “The second you imagined that giving you my ring was a part of some scheme instead of a precaution.” His laugh is humorless. “You thought I was capable of helping Daniel put a bullet in Tex and calling it a strategy.”
