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Even though I’m shaking, I stare him down. “You’re being stupid,” I inform him. “Just because you’ve used people like that before doesn’t mean it can’t be different this time.”
“I will hurt you. I’m telling you toleave.”
The words cut like ice through my heart.He thinks it’s for the best, that’s all it is. I understand that.But it still hurts enough to bring me close to crying.
“If I stay…” I say, my voice trembling. “If I stay, youmighthurt me. Youmightlet your possessiveness slip. But if you throw me away like this…” I choke, trying to force back the tears welling up. “You don’t even know what you’ve done for me. How much better my life is with you. Even when we’re not together, you’ve given me so much more confidence in myself. You made me believe I was worth something. If I stay, maybe you’ll hurt me. But if you make me leave, you willdestroyme.”
For a moment, I think maybe I got through to him. He stays silent for a long moment, the tension heavy enough that it feels like it could suffocate us all. He takes a step back. Then another.
His power is even more uncontrolled and tumultuous than originally, shadows splitting away completely andscreaming. They writhe around him, sharp spikes of darkness erupting like solar flares. He’s visibly shaking with the effort of holding himself together, even more conflicted than before.
I reach my hand out after him. “Elias—”
“Stay. Back,” he warns.
“Please! We can work something out.”
“Not like this.”
I stumble forward. My head is spinning, vision blurred by tears.We can. We have to be able to work it out. If it’s his possessiveness, his worry about hurting me, we can work through it. I don’t believe he just doesn’t want me. I can’t believe it. It’ll break me if I do.
If he didn’t want me, he wouldn’t be so possessive of me in the first place. Right?
His voice is strained, almost desperate. “I need space.”
“Running and never talking about anything is what let things get this bad in the first place,” I plead. “Talk to me, please, Elias. You can’t just—”
“Stayback!” Elias snarls.
There’s a grip around my wrist, and Caelan takes hold of me, yanking me back. “Shannon, fuckinglisten. It ain’t safe—”
“I don’tcare.”
“Even I wouldn’t go near him in that state! Don’t be a goddamn idiot!”
I shake Caelan off and resolutely approach Elias. He seems barely human, almost entirely swallowed up by the livid blackness surrounding him.
He steps back again, and I can tell. I can see it in the way his lips curl and his eyes harden. He’s going to retreat where I can’t follow. Back to the abyss. And there’s no way Caelan will take me back in there again after all of this.
There’s only a split second to think. I lunge forward, desperately trying to reach him. So close, close enough to step into the writhing mass of shadows that are roiling and bursting like a storm and it…
It hits like a punch to the gut, the impact of his power.
I choke. I can’t even gasp, all the wind forced out of me in an instant.
For one moment, Elias’ expression is pure, abject horror. Then the darkness swallows him completely, and he vanishes into nothing.
Into the abyss.
I sink to my knees.
I wish I could scream. I wish I could feel anything. But it’s just numb. Cold. The shock leaves me paralyzed.
It hurts, I realize. Not just my heart. That too. But my chest, just below my ribcage, where I felt the impact of his shadows flaring out in another violent eruption.
One of them hit me.
Distantly, I raise my hand to touch it. The flesh feels tender, like a fresh, deep bruise. For a moment I think there’s blood, but, no. Not blood. There’s no actual wound. It’s just a black, solid shadow, thick and sticky and staining my fingers like ichor.
