Page 40 of Splitting Secrets
“Haven’t I proven that every step I take is to ensure your safety?”
My answer is immediate. “No.”
“Come on, Little Nightmare. You’ve made your point,” he growls the stupid nickname, brows pulling together into the same menacing scowl that would have had me backing off a few weeks ago.
Not today.
“Have I?” I spit, crossing my arms over my chest again.
Leaning forward, he buries his fists into the bed on either side of my thighs and erases the space between us. He doesn’t stop until our noses are nearly touching. “I get it. You can’t stand me because I killed your parents.”
The mocking lilt of his tone has my blood raising ten degrees.
“That’s a pretty good fucking reason to hate someone.”
“And I never suggested that you shouldn’t,” he calmly points out.
“Then what are we doing here, Raze? Why did you help me out of that cell? Why are you doinganyof this?”
I can’t take the confusion anymore. The hot and cold attitude, the unsure footing. One minute, he’s threatening to slaughter me, and the next he’s handing me the key to my enclosure.
“Because you’re mine, and I’m done with the Midnight Syndicate thinking they can take things that belong to me.”
“I’mnotyours,” I insist, rearing backward. He follows, his movements matching mine to keep the perfect distance between us at all times.
“You are. I’ve claimed you since the moment I saw your cousin’s name on the list of incoming legacies for this semester. I hadn’t even laid eyes on you yet, and I knew you weremine.”
My nose scrunches in a scowl. “You thought I was Poppy back then. It’s not the same thing.” And judging by how much he clearly hates Aunt Divina, having himclaimme probably wasn’t a good thing back then.
He shakes his head, rejecting the thought. “I knew you weren’t her as soon as I saw you on that bench, staring up at the moon like you wanted to propel yourself onto it.”
“You treated me horribly.”
“I couldn’t stand the idea of falling for you. Of having a weakness. But it didn’t matter. None of it mattered, because you still walked into my classroom twice a week and were the only thing I could see. I may have started off claiming you, but by the end of it, I was yours.”
“Well, consider yourself a free man.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“It is,” I insist, my eyes widening. “You killed my parents. You wanted to killme.”
“I-I had no other choice than to do what I did,” he stutters out, struggling to speak for the first time since I met him. “I’vehad to live with that decision every single day since. But if I hadn’t done it—if I hadn’t been pushed to the edges of mania—I wouldn’t have been able to spare as many lives as I have.”
“You expect me to believe that my parents were some sort of...human sacrifice for your rebellion movement?” I stumble over the words, hardly able to mutter them.
How is this a real conversation? This man has taken people’s lives, and he’s acting like I shouldn’t be deterred by that.
“I expect you to believe the truth. What happened broke something integral inside of me. I didn’t walk away from that day unscathed. But I chose to take that weakness and turn it into something that fuckingmattered. Something that has grown beyond what you or I can even fully fathom. I chose to continue their mission. I won’t apologize for that.”
His mouth sets into a stubborn line as the menacing glare of his eyes somehow grows harder.
“What do you mean?”
“I didn’t start this rebellion.Theydid.”
My head rears back into the wall. “That’s not possible. They were just regular people.”
I hate the sad, pitiful smile that curves his lips. “Carter and Constance Ellery are far from regular people.”
