Page 57 of Raze
On top of that, she’s a wild card who refuses to work with others. I need to know that she’ll workwithus. I brought her in, but she has yet to prove that she can be a team player. She enables Dane’s obsession with his sister, who we all know is working with the enemy that wants to kidnap Dane again. She goes out on her own without telling anyone what she’s doing or considering the potential fallout of her actions that affect us or the Guild.
I’m obsessed with her anyway.
I hate it. I hate myself for my weakness, most of all.
I close the door behind me. Just as it clicks shut, there’s movement in the darkness of her room, and then I’m pinned against the door with something sharp against my neck. The light of the moon is faint but enough to provide shadows in the room so I can make out a silhouette in front of me.
“Why are you inhere?”
I mold the knife in my hand at my side back into a thick metal band around my wrist when I recognize Jackson’s voice. “Where have you been?” I demand in a low voice. The last thing I need is to wake Raegan and have her find me in her room. Jackson could probably care less.
“Hunting. Now, answer mine,” Jack replies evenly, like he isn’t still holding a knife to my throat. That in itself tells me that I need to tread carefully with him tonight.
“Checking on her.” I won’t admit that I was going to watch her sleep, but even saying this much ticks me off.
Jackson chuckles and taps the knife against my neck before finally pulling it and himself away from me. “What did I tell you about keeping secrets?” I can see the shape of him moving toward the bed, thereby getting close to the window and the moonlight. I can see more of him now between that and my eyes adjusting.
He crouches to the floor and then strokes the hair from Raegan’s face. He watches her with single-minded intensity. Like everything else in the world, even me in the room with them, has completely fallen away, and she’s the only thing he sees.
He leans closer to her, and I assume he’s just going to whisper something to her, but then his mouth meets hers, and I jump forward to grab him.
A gust of wind knocks me back. Did he just…? I catch myself on my feet, and by the time I look back at him with shock, he’s smirking at me while still in his crouch.
“Don’t touch her in her sleep,” I snap as quietly as I can, taking another step toward him.
Jackson shrugs and smiles back. “She wouldn’t mind.”
My jaw ticks at the reminder of them sleeping together. I had a feeling it would come to this, though I had expected Kellan more than Jackson. Jealousy writhes in my chest like a venomous snake wrapping around my lungs.
It shouldn’t matter to me if she’s with anyone. I had given up on having her a long time ago. Back when she could have been mine before anyone else’s. When I discovered there was a bigger connection between her and GE, I kept it to myself because I let my feelings for her cloud my judgment. Vera died that same week, and I can’t help but think that the outcome would have been different had I said something to the others right away.
Even if it was an accident, putting the others on alert might have changed things. As of today, I still don’t have an explanation for her birth certificate. I also don’t understand her connection with Gordon. What is he, to her? Why did she obey him when he’d attacked? If there was abuse involved, as I suspect, did he succeed in getting some sort of control over her? Am I putting everyone more at risk by having her around before I’ve determined if she’d still obey commands from him? If he hurt her, why would she think he’d left something for her at the Tower? What am I missing?
I can’t choose her again. Not at the risk of everyone else.
That doesn’t mean seeing her with the others makes it burn any less.
“I can wake her up to do it instead, if you’d prefer,” Jackson adds with a knowing smirk. Of course, I don’t want him to wake her up while I’m in the room. She can’t know I’ve been sneaking in here.I also havezerointerest in watching them kiss as she tells him how much she’s missed him.
She hasn’t said anything to us, but there are clear moments when she’s looking out the window, and I know she’s thinking about him.
“How did you do that before? With the wind? Only Thorne could do that.” Jackson’s been able to manipulate people and objects, even smells and sounds, with his aerokinesis since we were children. But creating a powerful wind or weaponizing the air itself takes a strength he’s never been able to harness before. His strength lays in fine control using the air around something rather than the air itself. But to have improved this quickly to what Thorne can do while he’s alive and out there is…concerning.
Jackson sits on the top corner of her bed, his fingers trailing through Raegan’s hair while he watches her. “I’ve been practicing.”
I move closer to them until I’m within arm’s reach of her if I feel like I need to intervene. To which Jack raises his eyebrows at me with that enigmatic smile of his, as if to remind me that he’s never a danger to her. Of the two of us, I’m the more likely one to hurt her.
“You practiced before, and it never worked,” I remind him.
He shrugs again. “I’m more motivated this time around.”
My lips turn down at the possible implications of that. “Does it have anything to do with the massacre at an office building this morning? Or those children you keep dropping off at the Guild?”
“Maybe,” he answers cryptically.
“There’s shit going on at the Guild right now, Jack. We don’t need you to be hunting anyone down or drawing more attention to us. Why did you kill all those people this morning? You didn’t even tryto hide it.”
Jackson smiles. But it’s dark and twisted and stalls the breath in my lungs when I see it. “How do you call a shark to you?” he asks softly, dangerously. I don’t think he means for me to answer him, so I don’t. “You put blood in the water.”
