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Chapter Nine
Claire
As we drove back to the paper, Jack silently gripped the steering wheel. His eyes remained on the road, refusing to look in my direction. Although Jack wasn’t talking, I could already guess all the things he would say if he just opened his mouth.
He would tell me that this was too dangerous.
That what we were about to become involved in was too close to what had happened to me.
That I was about to get in over my head.
“I’m not giving up on finding the man who did this to me,” I said, breaking the silence and responding to all those unspoken thoughts. Jack shifted uncomfortably next to me, but still didn’t look toward me. “You can’t expect me to do that. And you know that if you even so much as try, I’ll just do it without you.”
Which, in the long run, was probably the best thing that could happen to either of us. Being around him reminded me constantly of how he had rejected me that night. And apparently, being around me was just uncomfortable for Jack in general.
I watched Jack as his jaw flexed and his fingers became even tighter on the steering wheel.
“You deserve better than to spend the rest of your life chasing after a ghost,” Jack said, his voice low and menacing. Whenever he used that voice, I thought of what it might sound like when he was deep inside me.
Not that I would ever know.
“You deserve to find happiness, Claire. And you can’t find that while you’re living in the past.”
It felt as if he had reached into my chest, grabbed my heart, and squeezed. Because I knew what was going unsaid in that sentence.
That past involved him. And if I could go on, I could get past him.
Leave him behind.
“And tell me, Jack, what do you think a future looks like for me?”
As soon as the question came out of my mouth, I wished I could reach out and pull it back in. Because I had the terrible feeling he was about to break my heart.
For minutes, he said nothing. That muscle in his jaw twitched. His fingers tightened more around the steering wheel. The tension was so palpable, it seemed to singe my skin.
“What if you left Mystic Springs?” Jack finally asked. That squeezing feeling around my heart grew even tighter. I fought for breath around the hurt that was flooding my body.
“Leave Mystic Springs?” I asked. Just stop talking, Claire. Stop asking questions. Whatever he’s going to say, it’s going to make the hurt all that much worse.
“Things are getting more dangerous here, Claire. What if you found some place safe? Some place where you could thrive instead of chasing around ghosts every day?”
Some place that didn’t include him.
“You seem to forget that I’m not a 16-year-old witch anymore.” My throat was dry. I had to pry my tongue from the roof of my mouth to speak. “From what we can see, they only take young witches, just reaching their majority, if that. They wouldn’t want someone like me anymore.”
“You’re exactly what they would want, Claire,” Jack said, the low, menacing tone replaced with something fierier this time. “You’re young. You’re fertile. You’re unbonded.”
And now, the feeling of that clenching around my heart turned to one that felt as if he had shoved a knife into it. I knew he believed that the bond that had formed between us that day wasn’t anything other than a force bond, but the fact that he didn’t even think it existed? It would have hurt less if he had opened the car door and thrown me from the moving vehicle.
“Claire, I’m not trying to hurt you,” he said, and I bit back the retort that was right there at the tip of my tongue. “But don’t you wonder what it would be like? To go somewhere and start over? Find a nice warlock who wasn’t forced on you like I was that day?”
Please stop talking. My lungs begged for that next injection of oxygen. I was certain that if I looked around, I could see the cracks in the sky as the world fell down on me.
Once a month or more, I went through all those rituals to calm my physical need for this man. Otherwise, I knew I would maul him like a wild animal. But those spells and potions did nothing to subdue the way my heart beat for him. And right now, my heart ached so much in my chest that I felt like I was drowning.
“Claire?”
I turned to look at him. He was looking at me and, for once, the stern expression was gone. In its place was one of open concern. His blue eyes were filled with worry. I turned away from him. I couldn’t look at him any longer. Afraid that I might see something that gave me hope for something more.
