I pulled back my hand, hugging my arms to my chest. A few days ago, I would probably have denied this statement. But as much as I hated to admit it . . . I’d had fun, these last two days. Oh, I’d been worried and upset and terrified, but also . . . yeah. I hadn’t done any of it for the fun, but that wasn’t the same as not having any.
“Why is that a bad thing?” I asked. “Don’t you want me to love my job?”
“Not when it puts you in danger. Not when you constantly feel the need to prove yourself, risk yourself.”
“But we saved Molly,” I said, my voice coming out . . . desperate. I felt like I was on a train that was slowly going off the rails, and I didn’t know the magic words to stop it. “The bad guy’s dead. It’s over.”
“Yeah, this crisis is over. But there will be another one. Maybe next week, maybe in another three years, but there will be another. And what if we’re married by then? What if we have a child?”
An old hurt filled my mouth with bitterness. “I can’t—”
“I know, nulls can’t get pregnant. There are other options, though. We could make it happen.” He reached across the space between us and ran his fingers through a tendril of my hair, which had fallen loose from the ballerina bun. “But either way, the next time something falls apart, you’re going to be out there risking your life again, and I’ll be stuck here, turning into this person I don’t want to be. This possessive, angry person who loves you so much that I feel helpless.”
This was a moment when I could have launched into my feminist speech about taking care of myself and not needing him to worry about me. But if I had learned one frickin’ thing in this relationship, it was that he couldn’t control his need to protect me any more than I could control my need for independence.
Eli got out of his chair and crouched down in front of mine. He reached up and brushed the tears from my cheeks. When had I started crying? “Are you asking me to quit my job?” I whispered.
“I’m asking you,” he said gently, “if you think you could even be happy without it. Happy being with me. Being a wife, and maybe a mother, with a job that doesn’t require risks.”
And this was it. This was the moment where I needed to decide who I was going to be. Hero or housewife?
No, that wasn’t fair. It was reductive, and besides, that wasn’t really the question. The question was, after all the things I’d done and experienced, could I still be happy in a relatively human life?
Assuming I could walk away from the Old World now without Dashiell and the others penalizing me . . . would I?
Five years ago, I would have left with a song in my heart. But since then, I’d come to realize that being who I was, doing the things I did . . . it helped people. And I liked that.
I reached up to touch Eli’s cheeks. He smelled like the ocean and aftershave and laundry soap, all the good clean smells that I now associated with home. We had been so happy.
And the moment I thought those words, I knew it was over.
“No,” I said, pushing my voice past the lump in my throat. “I love you. And I love the person that being with you makes me. But I love the other part of me, too. The one who does all the things you’re afraid of.”
He nodded, and in that instant I knew this was exactly what he’d expected. “You’re such a good man,” I said, my voice cracking. “This would really be a lot easier for me if you were a dickweed.”
He smiled faintly. I didn’t want to say the words, but one of us had to, and for once I was determined to be brave. “We’re breaking up, aren’t we?” I said.
He leaned forward to brush a gentle kiss across my lips. “Yeah. We are,” he said.
My heart shattered. I had thought I was already crying, but for a moment there, I lost control completely. Sobbing, snotty nose, can’t catch your breath, the whole ugly-cry package. Eli pulled me to my feet and put his arms around me, and I clung to him in that horrible, awkward-desperate way you hug someone for the last time. I felt his tears drop into my hair.
I don’t know how long that moment went on. I lost all grip on time.
In the back of my mind, though, as grief-stricken as I felt . . . I knew it was the right thing for both of us. People who get into relationships aren’t supposed to stop growing; they’re supposed to grow together. Eli and I hadn’t done that. Maybe it was because he was older than me, or maybe it was just our natures, but I had grown in one direction, and he in another. A divide had spread between the two of us, and I could no more bridge it than I could rewire my DNA. And at the end of the day, I didn’t want to change who I was. I kind of liked her.
When I finally did catch my breath, we managed to stand there and work out a couple of details. I would keep the guest cottage, because I needed it for Shadow. Eli would stay with friends tonight, and call me in a day or two about getting the rest of his stuff.
There was more we would need to discuss, of course, because you can’t disassemble three years of living together in five minutes. But I don’t think either of us could stand to rummage any deeper into such a new wound.
He kissed me one last time, a quick brush across my lips, and then Eli turned and left.
By the time Jesse came outside to check on me, the tears had slowed to a trickle. I didn’t look at him, just sat with my shoulders hunched and my hands clenched into balls so they wouldn’t tremble. “Scarlett?” Jesse said cautiously. “Are you okay?”
“We broke up,” I whispered, still staring ahead into the dim light from the street, where I’d last seen Eli’s taillights. “It’s over.” I buried my face in my hands. “I’m so tired.”
Without a word, Jesse leaned over and took my hands, pulling me to my feet. He hugged me, and kept his arm around me as he walked me back inside. There wasn’t anything else to say.
Chapter 47
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Dashiell said, in that mysterious vampire way where he sounds grandiose without sounding like he’s trying to be grandiose, “we will begin tonight’s proceedings with the trial you have all been talking about for the last two days.” A small, indulgent smile, and Dashiell nodded to Lawrence before resuming his seat between Kirsten and Will. That’s one thing you had to say for Dashiell: he didn’t draw things out, even with a captive audience.
The vampire toady didn’t even need to consult his iPad. “Molly of Wales,” he announced in a booming voice. A ripple of whispers rolled through the crowd, “stands accused of risking exposure to the humans,” Lawrence finished. From behind Kirsten and Will, Molly stepped out of the wings, looking nervous.
We’d planned this blocking carefully. Molly wasn’t brought forth in chains, or held at gunpoint. In fact, the city’s most powerful people had allowed her come in at their backs. It was a sign of support.
The whispers in the crowd turned into full-on agitation. Dashiell held up a single hand, and the audience went silent. “This trial will proceed as any other,” he said in a firm voice. “Please remain silent.”
Molly crossed the stage and sat down next to me at the table. I wanted to squeeze her hand, or at least give her a reassuring smile, but we’d talked beforehand about why that was not a great idea. Even though I wasn’t voting, I didn’t want to appear to be playing favorites.
“Molly,” Dashiell continued, “you have been accused of murdering eight of the human women you were living with, and turning four others without consent from myself, thus risking our exposure to the normal world. What do you say to these charges?”
Molly leaned forward, looking very young and very human. And very nervous. “It’s true that I was living with human girls,” she said, the mic picking up the quaver in her voice. “But I loved them. We were going to university together, and they were my friends.”
“Did you kill them?” Dashiell asked.
“Yes,” she said, and another roll of surprise rolled through the audience. “But I was forced.”
Gasps. Actual shouts of disbelief. Growling from the werewolves. And then things pretty much just got more dramatic from there.