Page 52 of Soulmates

“I think you’re lying. I think the thought of me dead bothers you.”

Something passed over Jake’s face, but it was gone too quickly for Maddox to be sure if it was pain he saw there.

“Nothing to say?” he asked into Jake’s silence. “That’s good because I have lots.”

“You always do,” Jake said.

Maddox sat on the ground in front of Jake, stretching out his legs and dropping the bag to his side.

“I think I might have this whole Soul Exchange thing figured out. And I think we’ve already started to complete it. I think that water magic is mine and you’ve absorbed it from me. So I have given you something, just the wrong something. Remember when we arrived? Cricket acted like I wasn’t showing him my full colors. I think he was waiting for blue to mix in. I sensed it sometimes, you know. The flow of water running alongside my veins. It always made my stomach feel cool, like I’d swallowed an ice cube on an empty stomach. Does it feel like that to you?”

Jake didn’t answer, keeping his face blank.

“Must be all that meditation and intimacy.”

Jake made a face at that.

“You seemed to enjoy it.”

“What do you want from me, Maddox? What do you need me to say to get you to go?”

“I don’t need you to say anything.”

“So, what are you doing?”

“Bonding.”

“You’re hilarious, really. How about we not do that, and we can just go our separate ways?”

“That would never work. You’d end up on a killing spree, and I’d fade away or explode in a ball of light—not sure which is most likely. Are my eyes glowing?”

Jake looked away.

“So I think, instead, we should just complete this ritual and be done with it.”

Jake snapped his gaze back to Maddox. For a moment, Maddox thought he saw hope in his eyes before the mask fell back in place. But it was a mask, Maddox realized. Where back at the school when the horrible task had started this whole mess, Jake had been cold and calculating, now he was conflicted. Maddox could feel it as well as he could feel his own confidence growing.

“And how do you propose we do that?”

“I have some ideas,” Maddox said and leaped at Jake. It was fast, faster than Maddox should have been able to move. He wrapped himself around Jake, who was trying to knock him off-balance and dislodge him.

“Get the fuck off of me.”

“No,” Maddox said, and vines crawled out of the earth to grab at Jake’s wrists, pulling them to the ground, immobilizing him.

“So contact doesn’t work now. Huh.” Cricket must have left the air shield coating one of them because though he could feel the slight warmth of Jake’s skin where he placed his hands on various exposed parts of Jake, it didn’t feel hot, and it didn’t feel like skin.

“Or maybe it does work and this stupid spell has finally worn itself out,” Jake said.

“I don’t think so. I can still feel you in my chest. And I can even feel where you’re empty,” Maddox replied. And he could feel it. The spaces between them and what needed to be fixed. He just still didn’t quite know how to do it.

Jake continued to squirm in an attempt to buck Maddox off, but roots tied him down too much for him to do more than jostle Maddox.

“Oh, do continue, Jake. This is really helping.”

“Shut the fuck up, Maddox, and seriously go the hell away.”

“Nope.” Maddox eyed Jake. “I don’t suppose you’d be willing to hold still while I think? No? I figured.”

---