Page 245 of Shadowblood Souls
“I almost killed you,” Jacob says quietly. “Maybe not quite as directly, but we both know I’m the one who pushed you to the edge. You might not have forgiven me, but you don’t seem to think I deserve to be scrubbed off the face of the planet for it either.”
Pain and regret resonate through his words. I swallow thickly before looking up at him.
He’s got a fresh bandage wrapped where he tried to cut his forearm off this morning. The one I used would have gotten soaked when our shadowkind attackers tossed him in the ocean.
He sounds calmer than he did when he broke down in front of me, but the anguish he expressed clearly hasn’t gone anywhere.
I can understand that urge in a way I didn’t totally before. If I could cut into my chest and dig out the parts of me that hold my shrieking power, I’m not sure I wouldn’t try.
I grapple for a way to respond to his statement. “We had all those years together before. Billy barely knows me except for what I did today. Anyway, him forgiving me isn’t the point.”
“You forgiving you is,” Jacob agrees. “Do you think you were somehow worse than I was? That you deserve worse than I do?”
I close my eyes. Somehow it hurts even trying to answer that question.
“I don’t know. I argued with Rollick about practicing more to make sure I had a better handle on my power. I took that gamble, and Billy paid for it.”
Jacob’s feet whisper across the carpet. The bed dips as he tentatively sinks down on the edge, still a couple of feet away from me.
“You were scared. You were scared, and you got backed into a corner, and youmostlymanaged to only lash out at the people who were actually a threat.”
“I’m not sure mostly is ever good enough.”
“Maybe not. But I was there too, Riva. He jumped out of the shadows and bolted up the dock so fast—Icouldn’t even tell whose side he was on in that first second, and I wasn’t caught up in my powers.”
I peek at him through narrowed eyes. “So, what, you’re saying it’s okay that I bashed him up?”
Jacob’s mouth twists as he holds my gaze. “I’m saying it was an honest mistake. If you’d erred in the other direction and hehadbeen joining the attack, we could all be dead.”
I can’t help snorting at the idea of Billy the faun, the sweetest of all the shadowkind we’ve met, racing in to slaughter us all, but there isn’t much humor in the sound.
“I don’t like it,” I say after a moment of silence. “The way I feel when I’m sending out that power. Or maybe it’s that I like it too much. What if using it even more makes itharderfor me to back away?”
That’s the question that’s been simmering inside me all day. The fear that’s made me balk rather than march straight to Rollick and say we should get on with my training.
What if I end up hurting even more people than I already have?
Jacob considers for a moment before speaking. “I think you’ll be able to tell if that’s happening, and then we can figure out other strategies to deal with that problem. You don’t like how things are now either. Even when you don’t know how to fix something, the only thing you can do is keep trying whatever seems most likely, over and over, until hopefully you get there. Right?”
I think from the shadow that’s come over his face that he isn’t talking just about me now.
I incline my head. “I guess that makes sense. I just—this isn’t anything like how I wanted to be.WhoI wanted to be.”
“The guardians took away a whole lot of our choices. But I’m trying to make the most of the choices I do have. I know you, Riva, just like you know me. You aren’t going to let yourself become an actual monster. If you could take on the whole fucking facility to get us out of there, you can handle this.”
The confidence in his voice brings an unexpected burn to the back of my eyes. “I wish I knew that for sure so I didn’t have to be so scared.”
Jacob’s expression softens. He leans toward me, his hand reaching out—and then falling to the duvet still several inches from where I’m sitting.
His hesitation hangs in the air between us like a tangible thing. He’s afraid too—afraid I wouldn’t have accepted even a brief touch of comfort from him.
But he was right to come in and insist on talking to me. It is better not being alone, even when my company is him.
Maybe especially because. He’s also right that he understands the guilt that’s suffocating me in a way I don’t think any of the other guys could, not exactly.
As far as I know, they’ve never hurt anyone that badly except in self-defense or forced by the guardians.
Sitting with Jacob, talking with him, has opened a crack in the weight that was pressing down on me. And seeping through that crack is not just a hint of relief but a tingle of longing.
