Total pages in book: 116
Estimated words: 109878 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 549(@200wpm)___ 440(@250wpm)___ 366(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 109878 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 549(@200wpm)___ 440(@250wpm)___ 366(@300wpm)
“You retired because you were tired of killing. That’s different from wanting to be better for someone specific.” Jay picks up his pen again. “What is it about Saylor that makes you feel this way?”
I stare at the motivational poster, wishing I were anywhere else. “I don’t know.”
“Try.”
“She trusts me.” The words come out reluctantly. “Not because she’s naive or stupid, but because she chooses to. Even after seeing what I’m capable of.”
“And that’s important to you.”
“No one has ever just accepted me before. Not the sanitized version or the useful version. But Saylor sees all of it and stays anyway.”
“How does that make you feel?”
I consider giving him some therapeutic non-answer, but something about the way Saylor looked at me last night makes me want to try honesty for once.
“Like maybe I’m not completely irredeemable,” I say finally.
“And now?”
“Now I think maybe I want to find out.”
Jay makes another note. “This is progress, Blue. Real progress.”
“It doesn’t feel like progress. It feels like weakness.”
“Caring about someone isn’t weakness.”
“It is when caring about them makes you vulnerable. When it makes you hesitate or second-guess or—” I stop, running my hands through my hair. “I’ve never cared about anyone the way I care about her. It’s terrifying.”
“Why terrifying?”
“Because I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know how to care about someone without destroying them.”
Jay sets down his pen and looks at me directly. “Tell me about your parents.”
The subject change is whiplash. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“Humor me. What were they like?”
“Dead. They’ve been dead for twenty-five years.”
“Before they died. What kind of parents were they?”
“My father was a drunk who thought discipline meant breaking whatever was closest when he got angry. My mother was so afraid of him that she never spoke above a whisper.” I don’t know why I’m telling him this. “They died in a car accident when I was fourteen, and I felt nothing but relief.”
“That’s a lot of trauma to carry.”
“Everyone has trauma, Jay. Not everyone becomes what I became.”
“No, but it explains why you don’t trust love. Why you think caring about someone means hurting them.”
“Because it does. Look at what I’ve done to Saylor already—kidnapped her, put her in danger, turned her into someone who stabs people at dinner parties.”
“Did you force her to stab Leroy?”
“No, but—”
“Did you make her ask you to teach her violence?”
“She asked for that, but I could have said no.”
“Could you have?” Jay leans back in his chair. “If Saylor had asked you for something she needed, could you actually have denied her?”
The answer is immediate and certain. “No.”
“Then you understand the difference between what your father did and what you’re doing.”
“Enlighten me.”
“Your father hurt people because he wanted to. You’re trying to protect someone because you love her.”
The word love makes me want to leave the room. “I never said anything about love.”
“You didn’t have to. It’s written all over your face every time you say her name.”
“I don’t fall in love, Jay. I help people. I protect them when necessary. But I don’t fall in love.”
“Why not?”
“Because love makes you weak. It makes you careless. It makes you—”
“Human?”
The question stops me cold. Human. Like that’s something desirable instead of something to be avoided.
“I’ve spent my entire adult life learning not to be human,” I say quietly. “Being human gets people killed.”
“Being inhuman gets people killed too. Just different people.”
“At least when I’m inhuman, the people who die deserve it.”
Jay is quiet for a long moment, studying my face. “Blue, can I ask you something?”
“You’re going to whether I say yes or not.”
“When you think about Saylor, what scares you more—that she might get hurt, or that she might leave?”
The question cuts straight through every defense I’ve built. Because the truth is, I can handle the thought of fighting off the Crow, of protecting her from external threats. But the idea of waking up one morning to find her gone, having decided that I’m not worth the complications I bring to her life?
That terrifies me in ways I don’t have words for.
“Both,” I admit. “But if I’m honest . . . losing her scares me more than anything else.”
“And there it is.” Jay’s smile is gentle, almost proud. “You love her, Blue. For the first time in your life, you’re in love.”
“That’s not—”
“It is. And the sooner you accept it, the sooner we can figure out how to help you not screw it up.”
I stare at the chaos of his office, at the certificates on his wall, at anything that isn’t his knowing look. Love. Such a small word for something that’s rewiring my entire nervous system.
“Assuming you’re right,” I say carefully, “what exactly am I supposed to do with that information?”
“You need to stop pretending this is just about teaching her self-defense.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”