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Tell me you don’t want me.

I don’t. Not the way you want me. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry, Jasmine.

It was more than I could bear, this pain. Even when there’d been no cause for it, I’d had hope. That’s what love did, it lied to you. It turned you into a blind fool, the unrequited kind anyway. Deep inside, in the part of me I’d tried to ignore, I’d allowed myself to imagine us together, because anything else felt so wrong.

Voices drifted up from downstairs.

Willow’s voice, and she sounded upset.

A muffled sob came next, and I shoved the covers off, rushed out to the hall, and started down.

“Oh goddess,” Aunt Daisy said, cradling Violet close. “I thought he was doing better.”

There was a low rumbling voice. Warrick.

I stopped on the stairs, not wanting to intrude, and because I knew instantly who they were talking about.

“So did I,” Willow said, and she sounded defeated, heartbroken. “Warrick stopped him, but if we hadn’t followed him, he would’ve done it. He would’ve…jumped off that cliff.”

I gripped the banister, my heart seizing in my chest.

“How many times has he almost jumped off that fucking cliff and I had no idea?” Willow said. “I should have been with him, especially today—”

“Today?” Daisy asked.

“It’s the anniversary of when he was possessed, the first day Edward forced him to kill. There was this…this big fucking write-up in the Roxburgh Times, interviews with the grieving families, the faces of all the victims, a serial killer still on the loose angle. When I saw it, I rushed to Ren’s, but he’d already taken off.” She made a strangled sound. “Goddess, Mom, he cut himself, he...he mutilates himself…”

“He’s been doing that a while,” Warrick said. “Those scars, he never lets them fully heal.”

Daisy sobbed.

I went back up the stairs feeling sick to my stomach. I hadn’t realized what date it was. I’d been worrying about myself, about my feelings, when Ren had been suffering. I could help him heal, but this would never end for him, it would never go away.

Ren was broken, and he needed me. But I couldn’t give him that at the expense of my own sanity. I wouldn’t let him keep suffering, but if I didn’t do something to stop this pain in my chest, I wouldn’t be any use to him.

I’d been desperately trying to heal myself, to smooth away the jagged edges of my own pain, but the wounds were too vast, too deep. They were scars now, thick and raw and there was no healing them.

He needed me, but I couldn’t do it, not like this. Not when I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t walk and talk and live in a world where he was while I loved him, knowing he didn’t love me back.

This had to be over.

It had to end.

I wouldn’t let Ren hurt himself anymore.

I loved him too much for that.

I stared up at the brownstone, the vintage lantern above the door making its shiny black surface gleam.

All I could think about as I sped here in my car was the face of the female who’d walked out of that door the last time I was here. The peace, the joy, the relief that flowed from her.

I wanted that. I needed it. I needed to be free of this pain. I couldn’t take it another moment. I wasn’t strong enough to help Ren as long as this agony was inside me. I wanted it gone. I wanted this feeling inside me gone. For good. And the only way to do that was by putting up a thick, impenetrable wall and blocking it off, suffocating it. Killing it. For Ren’s sake, and mine.

I jogged up the stairs and knocked before I could change my mind. I was on a pain Ferris wheel, and this was the only way of getting off that ride and staying off it for good.

The door opened and Xavier stared down at me, a frown lowering his brows. “Jasmine? You’ve been crying. Is everything all right?”

I barely realized I was crying, no, sobbing. My throat hurt and my eyelids were tight and puffy. Goddess, this was humiliating. “I need your help in a…a professional capacity,” I said, my voice shaky and broken when I was trying so hard for it to come out strong.