I laugh brokenly at his bewildered expression. “I knew I was taking a risk. What did I really know about you, after all? Just that you’re a leader, a captain of the resistance. And a carrier. But nothing I couldn’t handle. I left a place surrounded with people who would rather slit my throat than lift a hand to help. But gradually, you made me believe this place was different. You showed me proof that carriers don’t have to be violent. They could be good. You were that proof. I began to think a carrier could be good because you were. But that’s not true. You’re not even a carrier. You’re just a normal guy.”
A normal guy. Normal. Something I can never be. Even he told me that—to stop longing for normal. And yet he’s just that. The gulf between us never seemed wider.
I grab the paper off his desk and wad it up and fling it at him. It hits him in the chest and drops to the bed. He picks it up, his face bleeding of color. He rubs a hand over his jaw. “Guess I shouldn’t have kept this.”
“Yeah. Not so smart. But I have to wonder why you were hanging on to it. Did you think it might save you someday if the Agency ever caught up with you?” I laugh thinly. “You could show them you’re not a carrier.” I shake my head slowly side to side, the betrayal hot and acrid in my mouth. “Why? Why would you want anyone to think you’re a carrier when you’re not?”
He drags a hand through his hair again. “My father didn’t want me to join the Resistance. He wanted me safe. With my mother. My sister. But I just didn’t see it that way. So I went ahead and got the imprint.” A faint smile hugs his lips. “Dad was so pissed.”
“Stupid,” I snarl, and come at him, hitting him in the chest with both fists. He pulls me down on the bed and flips me on my back, looming over me. “You could have been safe,” I rage into his face. “But you chose this? This life!” And ended up with me. “Stupid, stupid! You made me think we’re the same.”
“We are,” he insists. “We can be together.”
“No.” I hit him harder. “We don’t even belong to the same species! How could you do it? You shouldn’t even be here.” Then I would never have met him. Never have fallen for him.
He lets me beat him for a moment before grabbing both wrists and pinning them on either side of my head. “We’re not different species. We’re the same. We’re both people.”
“No!”
“I believed in the cause—”
“Why? Why?” I’m not sure what I’m even asking. Why did he choose this life? Why did he break down my walls and make me love him?
I’m sobbing now, and I realize it’s been a while since I gave in to serious deep-from-the-chest tears. They’re not like when Phelps dug a bullet out of my shoulder. Or when Caden found me in the desert. Or that other time in his room. Fine. I might have cried around him before, but these tears feel different. Because they feel like the last he will ever see. The last I will ever permit myself to shed in his presence. They feel like tears of mourning.
“No one would listen to me, no carriers . . . they wouldn’t let me lead them if they knew I didn’t have HTS. I had to do this if I was going to be of any use.”
I try to pull away, but he still clings to my wrists, pinning them to the mattress.
“Let. Me. Go.”
His eyes sweep my face, a nearly physical touch. Finally he releases me, but even as he does, he says, “I’m not letting you go, Davy. Ever.”
The determination with which he utters those words sends a ripple of sensation through me that makes me remember everything we did, everything we shared together in this bed. My cheeks flame hot at the memory. I scoot to the edge, dropping my legs over the side as I rub my wrists like I can rid myself of his touch.
“This was a mistake.” I moisten my lips. “I knew it. I knew I shouldn’t have let myself—”
“No.” He closes the distance between us again and takes hold of my shoulders, his voice a harsh growl. “Don’t say that. You and I are not a mistake. We are fate.”
I shake my head with a snort, tempted to cover my ears. I can’t do this with him. Can’t hear any of this.
“I thought that we were alike, that we were coming from the same place, that we faced the same future, the same struggles.” I’m babbling now. Tears burning at the backs of my eyes. This is what I didn’t want to happen. What I refused to let happen. To love and die from pain when it all fell apart. When I end up alone. Again.
I realize now that I had been contemplating forever with him.
His hands tighten and he hauls me against him, lifting me onto his lap. “We are! You don’t see that? You don’t know?” His eyes lock on me, looking deep, seeking something, everything. He takes my hand and forces it over the steady thump of his heart. “Don’t you feel it between us? You’re a part of me now, Davy. I’m a part of you. I’m not letting you go.”
I choke on a sob. “Don’t do this—”
He kisses me then. Not like the other kisses. This one is tender, pleading, soft and tormented. It breaks me. Or would. If I wasn’t already broken.
I wedge my hand between us and tear free. “No!” Standing, I jab a finger in his direction. “Don’t touch me again.”
Spinning around, I charge from the room.
“Davy! Stop!”
The door slams after me, muffling his cries. I don’t look back, just push ahead blindly, not thinking about where I’m going. About the fact that there’s nowhere to go. I’m trapped in this tomb, and the one person I loved, who I thought could love me back, doesn’t exist. He never did.