Castle looks up. Looks me in the eye.
“Mr. Kent has begun having a similar problem with you.”
“What?” I gasp.
“I’m afraid he doesn’t know how to control his abilities yet. It’s something we’re hoping we can work on, but it will take a lot of time—a lot of energy and focus—”
“What do you mean,” I hear myself ask, my words heavy with panic, “that he has already begun having a similar problem with me?”
Castle takes a small breath. “It—it seems that he is weakest when he is with you. The more time he spends in your company, the less threatened he feels. And the more … intimate you become,” Castle says, looking distinctly uncomfortable, “the less control he has over his body.” A pause. “He is too open, too vulnerable with you. And in the few moments his defenses have slipped thus far, he’s already felt the very distinct pain associated with your touch.”
There it is.
There’s my head, lying on the floor, cracked right open, my brain spilling out in every direction and I can’t I don’t I can’t even I’m sitting here, struck, numb, slightly dizzy.
Horrified.
Adam is not immune to me.
Adam has to work to defend himself against me and I’m exhausting him. I’m making him sick and I’m weakening his body and if he ever slips again. If he ever forgets. If he ever makes a mistake or loses focus or becomes too aware of the fact that he’s using his gift to control what I might do—
I could hurt him.
I could kill him.
FOURTEEN
Castle is staring at me.
Waiting for my reaction.
I haven’t been able to spit the chalk out of my mouth long enough to string a sentence together.
“Ms. Ferrars,” he says, rushing to speak now, “we are working with Mr. Kent to help him control his abilities. He’s going to train—just as you are—to learn how to exercise this particular element of who he is. It will take some time until we can be certain he’ll be safe with you, but it will be all right, I assure you—”
“No.” I’m standing up. “No no no no no.” I’m tripping sideways. “NO.”
I’m staring at my feet and at my hands and at these walls and I want to scream. I want to run. I want to fall to my knees. I want to curse the world for cursing me, for torturing me, for taking away the only good thing I’ve ever known and I’m stumbling toward the door, searching for an outlet, for escape from this nightmare that is my life and
“Juliette—please—”
The sound of Adam’s voice stops my heart. I force myself to turn around. To face him.
But the moment he meets my eyes his mouth falls closed. His arm is outstretched toward me, trying to stop me from 10 feet away and I want to sob and laugh at the same time, at the terrible hilarity of it all.
He will not touch me.
I will not allow him to touch me.
Never again.
“Ms. Ferrars,” Castle says gently. “I’m sure it’s hard to stomach right now, but I’ve already told you this isn’t permanent. With enough training—”
“When you touch me,” I ask Adam, my voice breaking, “is it an effort for you? Does it exhaust you? Does it drain you to have to constantly be fighting me and what I am?”
Adam tries to answer. He tries to say something but instead he says nothing and his unspoken words are so much worse.
I spin in Castle’s direction. “That’s what you said, isn’t it?” My voice is even shakier now, too close to tears. “That he’s using his Energy to extinguish mine, and that if he ever forgets—if he ever gets c-carried away or t-too vulnerable—that I could hurt him—that I’ve already h-hurt him—”
“Ms. Ferrars, please—”
“Just answer the question!”
“Well yes,” he says, “for now, at least, that’s all we know—”
“Oh, God, I—I can’t—” I’m tripping to reach the door again but my legs are still weak, my head is still spinning, my eyes are blurring and the world is being washed of all its color when I feel familiar arms wrap around my waist, tugging me backward.
“Juliette,” he says, so urgently, “please, we have to talk about this—”
“Let go of me.” My voice is barely a breath. “Adam, please—I can’t—”
“Castle.” Adam cuts me off. “Do you think you can give us some time alone?”
“Oh.” He startles. “Of course,” he says, just a beat too late. “Sure, yes, yes, of course.” He walks to the door. Hesitates. “I will—well, right. Yes. You know where to find me when you’re ready.” He nods at both of us, offers me a strained sort of smile, and leaves the room. The door clicks shut behind him.
Silence pours into the space between us.
“Adam, please,” I finally say, and hate myself for saying it. “Let go of me.”
“No.”
I feel his breath on the back of my neck and it’s killing me to be so close to him. It’s killing me to know that I have to rebuild the walls I’d so carelessly demolished the moment he came back into my life.
“Let’s talk about this,” he says. “Don’t go anywhere. Please. Just talk to me.”
I’m rooted in place.
“Please,” he says again, this time more softly, and my resolve runs out the door without me.
I follow him back to the beds. He sits on one side of the room. I sit on the other.
He stares at me. His eyes are too tired, too strained. He looks like he hasn’t been eating enough, like he hasn’t slept in weeks. He hesitates, licks his lips before pressing them tight, before he speaks. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you. I never meant to upset you.”
And I want to laugh and laugh and laugh until the tears dissolve me.
“I understand why you didn’t tell me,” I whisper. “It makes perfect sense. You wanted to avoid all of this.” I wave a limp hand around the room.
“You’re not mad?” His eyes are so terribly hopeful. He looks like he wants to walk over to me and I have to hold out a hand to stop him.
The smile on my face is literally killing me.