Page 108 of Total Obsession

"I saw the whole thing, Zoey. He was going to hurt you. He had a knife to your throat."

"Why do people do bad things to one another?" she said through soft hiccups. "Why can't we all just be kind?"

I shook my head and thought about all the people I'd encountered over the years. "A few reasons. Greed, envy, anger. We're emotional beings. We all act out. The difference between us and animals is that, as far as we know, we're the only ones that have brains to fully process what we've done. We can experience guilt, regret, and remorse."

"It's more of a curse," she said. "I don't want to think about it, but it won't go away."

"It will," I reassured her.

"Maybe it shouldn't," she said.

"What do you mean?"

"Maybe it shouldn't go away. Maybe I did something so horrible that I should always have to live with it. Maybe that will be my curse."

I shook my head. "You're not cursed," I said to her. "And, a person as good as you doesn't deserve to feel guilt over what happened. I'm the one that should feel guilty."

"Do you?"

I swallowed hard. "Over what I've put you through? Yes. Over what I've done to others, no."

"Why?" she asked.

"You're the only person I've hurt that didn't deserve to be hurt."

"What does that mean?"

"I know this sounds like an excuse, but I never killed unless there was some reason to. Even if Johnny sent me orders, if I didn't feel like that person's crimes warranted the sentence they'd been given, I'd refuse. I researched people. Saw what their sins were. Asked whether the world would be better off without them in it. That was the code by which I killed.

"There are a lot of very bad people in this world, Zoey. But, there's also a lot of somewhat bad and not-so-bad people. There are very few good people. You're one of them."

She shook her head a bit. "No," she replied. "You're wrong. Look what I did to you. Look what I turned you into. I’ve been acting angry towards you all this time, but I think I’m really just angry at myself.”

I dared to enter her space, moving so that I was crouching over her now. I didn't care about the pain from my ribs. I needed her to look at me, and I needed her to understand what I was about to say.

"Zoey, you did not turn me into anything. You are not to blame for my own actions. My actions are my own. Do you understand this?"

"That's not true," she said. "You ran away because you had nothing left. I took everything from you that day."

"But the way I chose to handle that loss is my burden, Zoey. Not yours. And, if I have to spend the rest of my life reminding you of that, I will."

"What a waste of a life that would be," she said.

I bit back a growl and gripped the sheets around her hard. "Being able to have you in my life in any capacity would give me more purpose than I've ever known."

"Do you know what your name actually stands for?" she asked me.

I furrowed my brow and shook my head. "Honestly, no."

"I looked it up when we were kids," she said. "I was always so curious about it because it was so unique."

I didn't say anything.

"It means 'Man of Peace,' Axe," she said. "You were never meant to be a man of violence. Deep down, I know it's not you."

"I'm not sure who I am deep down anymore," I confessed to her. “Without the job and the money, who even am I?”

"I was going to tell you something," she whispered. "Before all this happened. But, I was waiting for you to come back from your trip."

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