CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
I was right and I was wrong.
The party started loud and wouldn't end until it had grown to deafening
tones.
And I was wrong—the earplugs didn't help and I found myself awake a few hours
later.
I sighed and rolled to my back.
Jace was propped up at my feet and he grinned languidly as he drawled,
"Morning."
"Morning, my ass." I retorted and sat next to him. "What time is it?"
"Midnight."
An entire night to hide in our hidey-hole.
"I'd think your friend 'Rafe' would quiet them down."
"Yeah, right. Rafe's probably the one riling them up. She's got a sick
humor."
"I wouldn't have noticed."
Jace grinned in amusement and shrugged, "Rafe's a good snitch to have. That's
about her only good quality."
"And I also wouldn't have noticed that one."
"You and complaining don't mix…at all."
"You and sarcasm should marry…and you're buying me lots and lots of coffee in
the morning."
"Deal." Jace sighed and propped his elbows on his knees. He glanced sideways
and offered, "Truth or dare?"
"I'll choose dare for you and I dare you to go out there and kill them
all….no—make them unconscious. Very very unconscious."
"Don't want the blood on your hands?"
"Don't want the mess to clean up."
"That's my dare, huh?"
"No….I mean, yes. Now, please." I said promptly.
"How about truth instead, unless you dare me to make you cry from my farts."
Jace chuckled.
"Good god. Grow up."
"I'm a man. Farts are funny." Jace explained.
"It's disgusting and I'd rather you don't even say the word."
"Fart? Or farts?" Jace laughed and laughed some more.
"Funny." I said dryly.
"Fartingly funny?"
"You crack me up. Really. Into a thousand little pieces that I'd like to cut
you with."
"Ah, come on. Don't hate the farter."
"Shut up!" I shouted and Jace promptly slammed a hand over my mouth.
We both listened through the walls, but there was no sudden lull in the
voices crying, "Drink, you motherfucker! Drink!"
"Okay. It's all fun and games until you wake the closet monsters." Jace
warned with a smirk.
"We're the closet monsters."
Jace pondered a moment and mused, "Wouldn't that be funny? If we were in the
world and they were actually in a really big closet?"
"I'm stuck in a closet with a retarded philosopher." I shoved his hand away,
"And remove your hand, I don't know where your smells have been."
"My hands are clean, calm down." Jace still smirked as he leaned back.
"Okay. Truth, then."
"My truth or your truth?"
"Uh…your truth."
"Okay. I'm ready." He nodded and stretched to prepare himself.
"You're hilarious." I said scathingly.
"I can be." Jace retorted with such self-confidence that my words halted in
my throat, but only for a moment.
"Okay…"
"Don't go for the jugular. I'd rather not kill you yet, your corpse would
start to smell before the closet monsters pass out." Jace cautioned.
I rolled my eyes and asked, "Who's your closest friend?"
"Are we talking physically, distance-wise, or emotionally?"
"Why do you have to argue the simplest question?" I sighed. "Who is closest
to you?"
"Do you mean friend-wise, lovers, or anything else?"
"Answer the question."
"I need to know—"
"Now!" I barked, but contained it to a barked whisper.
"Okay." Jace sobered and thought, "I would've said your brother, but he wants
me dead so that doesn't count…uh….I plead the fifth."
"Why? Oh—you don't have any friends?"
"No, I do, but I can't tell who they are because they're undercover just like
me. I could get fired if I told you about them."
"So you are working." I exclaimed.
"Some days and some days not."
"I thought you'd say Taryn."
"Only one question. It's my turn."
"Fine."
"Okay…," The amusement and light-heartedness was gone and a grave
determination flashed across his features. "What do you want from me?"
"I…I want you to save my brother."
There it was. That was the truth and Jace saw it instantly.
He started to shake his head, but I interrupted, "Your turn."
"Fine." He sighed and waited. Quiet.
"Why didn't you say Taryn before?"
There was no evasion, he said easily, "Because she's not my friend. She never
was."
"But—"
He lifted an eyebrow and I stopped.
"Why were you with Mallon?"
"I don't like this game…"
"Answer the question."
I took a breath and relented reluctantly, "It started because I was helping
out someone else. He found out what I could do and wanted me to work for him
and…it was supposed to kill two birds with one stone, but…"
"It got complicated."
"It got complicated."
"Your turn." Jace offered.
I didn't wait, but asked instantly, "Do you still love Taryn?"
"Do you realize that you're the only one who brings her up?" Jace
countered.
"Do you?" I asked again.
"This is…this game isn't being used for what's it supposed to do."
"I think it's doing exactly what it was invented for." I said swiftly. "Truth
or dare. That's your truth."
"Yes." Jace breathed out. "I still love Taryn and yes, for your next
question, I will always love Taryn. She…she was my light that I saw at the end
of my tunnel. She…was my second chance in life."
"And now she's with someone else…"
Jace sighed and shifted to get more comfortable. He rasped huskily, "Since
we're being all truthful in this weird other-world closet…Taryn was always
Brian's. I knew that, she knew that, but Brian always suspected the worst. It
killed him and…Taryn wasn't supposed to be my second chance in life—with me. She
was…just an ideal that I had in my head to get me through. She got a normal
life. High school. A family. College. Even a normal boyfriend—or—normal, for
me."
"And if things were different? If you could've been with her?"
Truth and Dare was left to the sidelines and Jace answered, "I would've
ruined her."
"Because she's not strong enough for you?"
"Because Taryn is supposed to be in the spotlight. I live in the shadows. I
won't ever live in the spotlight. Minute I do is the minute I die."
I heard him and I heard the truth of his world. Saddened, I murmured, "This
game sucks."
"How about you and Mallon?"
"Why didn't we work out?" I grinned sardonically.
"No. How'd you leave him? A guy like that doesn't get left."
I sighed and murmured, "Since we're being all truthful…because I walked out
the front door and when Marcus tried to find me, to force me back—he realized
that everything about me had been a lie. I lied to him for five years."
"I lied to my friends and family for six years."
"We're good liars. We've got that in common."
Jace murmured, hoarse, thoughtful, "When you lie for that long…it's hard
sometimes…"
"Remembering the truth?"
"Yeah."
"Yeah." I breathed out.
Jace grinned lightly, "I feel oddly close to you right now."
"Yeah, well, just don't fart. You'll ruin the moment."
"Guess what?" Jace teased.
I caught my breath and uttered, "You didn't…"
"No. I didn't, but I would've if I could. The machine's not working
tonight."
"Did you just refer to your ass as 'the machine'?"
"Don't you?"
"Oh my god. No!"
"Why not?" He was serious.
"This is why girls smell nice and are prettier than boys. This is why you are
a guy. You like farts, we do not. You call your ass 'the machine', we would
never think of that. Your species can be disgusting."
"That's a whole lot of 'blah, blah, blah' to be true. You do call your ass
'the machine', don't you?" Jace nodded, knowingly.
And here it was folks. The man who brought two drug empires to their knees
now had a grin dumbly plastered to his face as he enjoyed a conversation about
naming body parts and threatening to fart.
"You're disgusting."
"Blah, blah, blah."
"Jace." I said sharply.
"What?"
"Shut up." And I curled on my bed, once again.
The bathroom door rattled at the moment and I shot up, my heartbeat pounded
between my ears as I instinctually stayed behind Jace.
Jace was still, but the tension rolled off him like shimmering heat
waves.
A second later, someone pounded on the door and then yelled, muffled through
the walls, "Hey, Rafe—your toilet's locked."
Whatever answer she gave must've been good enough because the lumbering drunk
lumbered away.
Breath escaped my lips once again and I stayed up, the relaxation had
vanished in an instant.
I caught a quick movement from the corner of my eye and saw that Jace relaxed
his hold on a gun that was lain beside him.
"Were you going to shoot him?" I asked as I wondered, dryly, if it would've
been too loser-esque to actually pat my chest in that moment. I needed to pound
my heart, make sure it was still beating..
"If it came to it," Jace glanced at me, "Yes."
Call me jaded, but I was reassured and able to lay back down.
The charming comic was gone in that instant and I ventured in the bated
silence between us, "Is that what happens when someone surprises you and walks
in on you?"
Jace thought a moment or he just didn't want to answer, but he did,
reluctantly, "It's a handicap from my life. It's dangerous, but it's
necessary."
"So if I'm just being quiet and I walk in…what then?"
"That won't happen."
"Why not? It happened just now."
"It's different." Jace rolled over and held my gaze. "I was distracted and
not ready. If you're not in the room with me, then I won't be distracted."
"So I distract you?"
Jace smiled faintly and answered, "You amuse me."
Another question teased at me, but I already knew the answer. I just wanted
to make sure… "Could you really kill them all out there? If it came down to
it."
"Do you really want to know the answer to that question?"
"I already think I do."
"I think you have a preconceived notion, but you don't really want to know
what I can do. No one wants to know that."
"I like to know my stack of cards." I noted.
"I'm not your stack of cards." Jace countered and propped his head on his
elbow. "Why do you want me to save your brother?"
"Truth and dare is over." I said lightly.
"Let's play again."
I rolled on my side to face him fully Both of us laid on our sides, nearly
touching the other. "I'd like to know about Brian."
"I'd like to know about Krein."
"You already know about Krein. He was your best friend."
"He was your brother and I'd like to know him as you do."
"I don't know my brother."
We were caught in another game. Two opponents who constantly baited,
withdrew, and measured the other to gain a foothold.
Neither of us were winning.
"You must if you think I'm going to save him. And by the way, breaking him
out of prison is out the question. Your brother's there for a reason."
"You got him into it, you can get him out."
Jace smirked, knowingly, "Is that what you think? I got him into that
life?"
"No. You don't know what I'm thinking." I said softly.
"For the record, I met your brother because of that life. He was already
selling when I recruited him."
"So you turned him pro. Thank you so much." I said quietly, sarcastically,
with an extra dose of menace.
"Are you seriously going to blame me for your brother's fall from grace? He
wasn't exactly high on some pedestal when I first saw him. He was shooting crack
into someone's arm by a syringe. What a pedestal."
I bared my teeth in a smile, "You talk as if you're trying to shock me."
"Aren't I?"
"I've been there. Done that. I grew up on the streets."
"No." Jace shook his head. "You grew up in a home. You grew up to be
someone's lover that you lied to—not too different from everyone else's life.
And you might have some street smarts, but you're not the BoyWonder of Survival
of the Fittest and Most Feral."
"You don't know—"
"Have you killed someone?" Jace shut me up. "Have you taken your gun out,
knowing that you were going to end someone's life in a moment? Knowing that
person had a daughter, a wife, a husband, a brother, a child of their own—and
you were going to rip that person from them? And have you done that, thought
that, and still pulled the trigger?"
I didn't blink. "Is that what you thought when you killed Sal Galverson? That
his daughter would hate you for the rest of her life? Enough to make her know
where you were and to tell me? Did that run through your head?"
"No." Jace spoke, somber. "Because by that time, those thoughts were just
background chatter. All I thought about—I wanted to kill him. He was the lowest
form of life and he had murdered my brother. The fact that he had a gun in
Taryn's face—it was just icing on the cake."
I held my breath.
Jace added, "I enjoyed killing Sal. And I'd do it again, if he were
here."
"My oh my." I taunted. "Isn't this a touching rendition of who's the
toughest?"
Jace laughed and laid back, "Oh—hands down—you. You've got ice in your veins,
but you're smart enough to keep it from freezing your heart. I gotta give you
props for that."
"Some days, in the right mood—I don't think so."
"I do." Jace's confidence was shattering.
"I don't think that's a compliment."
"Not supposed to be. I just know who you are. I recognize what you are." Jace
turned his head and turned his glittering eyes on me. They pinned me down.
"And what's that?" I asked, not wanting to hear his answer.
"You're just like me, Maya. You've gone the distance and you've got what it
takes to do it again. And again. And again. And you still hold onto that soul
that you think about so much." Jace nodded. "I know what boils deep inside of
you. You're ice on top, but you're fire beneath it all. You're smart enough and
calculating enough to turn it off and lose that fire, but you don't. That's who
you are. Your entire life—it's all about keeping what's in your heart. You know
you could lose that care that you have, but you don't. That's our fight. You and
me. We can fight whoever's out there, but the fight that we really worry
about—it's inside of us."
His words hit my target and my insides crumbled.
Shaken, I whispered, "Shut up."
"The thing is—is that you're so scared to death that you've really lost your
soul that…you don't stop to realize how much you're alive." Jace suddenly sat
up. "You're so scared of growing numb to life that…you don't trust yourself. You
don't think you feel what you actually feel. How ironic is that?"
"I think…"
"That's your problem, Maya. You think too much. Stop thinking.
It turns you into a robot." Jace said swiftly as he flipped on his side and laid
his head down.
I was left, dumb, and speechless.
"See, right now—you're just thinking how you don't have anything to say. Stop
it. It only leads to badness."
I saw red instead and spat out, in anger, "You're fucking arrogant, you know
that? You think you know me so well, but you don't know anything about me—"
Jace flipped back and was in my face, "How the tides have turned. You're the
one who thinks she knows everything about me. You throw Taryn's name in my face
every other hour. You talk about my brother like he's some memory to be mocked.
And now—when I share a little insight to your life—you balk at it. Eat the shit
that you serve up, Maya. Taste it and tell me if you like it."
"Shut up."
"No." Jace said evenly. "You're not the only one in this closet that can
think, feel, and see beneath the surface. Get used to it and start realizing
that I'm a fucking human being, just like you, except—right now—I'm thinking I
have a bit more compassion for the human soul than you."
"You don't even know what you're talking about." I whispered, blind.
"Don't I? You blame me for Krein's betrayal. You think I can turn him back,
like I can make him right or something. Not going to happen. One of these
days—you're going to have to face facts and realize that your brother chose
stupidly and selfishly and he's not the brother that you idolize him to be."
"You're wrong."
"No. I'm really not." Jace murmured, heartbroken.
I was right and I was wrong.
The party started loud and wouldn't end until it had grown to deafening
tones.
And I was wrong—the earplugs didn't help and I found myself awake a few hours
later.
I sighed and rolled to my back.
Jace was propped up at my feet and he grinned languidly as he drawled,
"Morning."
"Morning, my ass." I retorted and sat next to him. "What time is it?"
"Midnight."
An entire night to hide in our hidey-hole.
"I'd think your friend 'Rafe' would quiet them down."
"Yeah, right. Rafe's probably the one riling them up. She's got a sick
humor."
"I wouldn't have noticed."
Jace grinned in amusement and shrugged, "Rafe's a good snitch to have. That's
about her only good quality."
"And I also wouldn't have noticed that one."
"You and complaining don't mix…at all."
"You and sarcasm should marry…and you're buying me lots and lots of coffee in
the morning."
"Deal." Jace sighed and propped his elbows on his knees. He glanced sideways
and offered, "Truth or dare?"
"I'll choose dare for you and I dare you to go out there and kill them
all….no—make them unconscious. Very very unconscious."
"Don't want the blood on your hands?"
"Don't want the mess to clean up."
"That's my dare, huh?"
"No….I mean, yes. Now, please." I said promptly.
"How about truth instead, unless you dare me to make you cry from my farts."
Jace chuckled.
"Good god. Grow up."
"I'm a man. Farts are funny." Jace explained.
"It's disgusting and I'd rather you don't even say the word."
"Fart? Or farts?" Jace laughed and laughed some more.
"Funny." I said dryly.
"Fartingly funny?"
"You crack me up. Really. Into a thousand little pieces that I'd like to cut
you with."
"Ah, come on. Don't hate the farter."
"Shut up!" I shouted and Jace promptly slammed a hand over my mouth.
We both listened through the walls, but there was no sudden lull in the
voices crying, "Drink, you motherfucker! Drink!"
"Okay. It's all fun and games until you wake the closet monsters." Jace
warned with a smirk.
"We're the closet monsters."
Jace pondered a moment and mused, "Wouldn't that be funny? If we were in the
world and they were actually in a really big closet?"
"I'm stuck in a closet with a retarded philosopher." I shoved his hand away,
"And remove your hand, I don't know where your smells have been."
"My hands are clean, calm down." Jace still smirked as he leaned back.
"Okay. Truth, then."
"My truth or your truth?"
"Uh…your truth."
"Okay. I'm ready." He nodded and stretched to prepare himself.
"You're hilarious." I said scathingly.
"I can be." Jace retorted with such self-confidence that my words halted in
my throat, but only for a moment.
"Okay…"
"Don't go for the jugular. I'd rather not kill you yet, your corpse would
start to smell before the closet monsters pass out." Jace cautioned.
I rolled my eyes and asked, "Who's your closest friend?"
"Are we talking physically, distance-wise, or emotionally?"
"Why do you have to argue the simplest question?" I sighed. "Who is closest
to you?"
"Do you mean friend-wise, lovers, or anything else?"
"Answer the question."
"I need to know—"
"Now!" I barked, but contained it to a barked whisper.
"Okay." Jace sobered and thought, "I would've said your brother, but he wants
me dead so that doesn't count…uh….I plead the fifth."
"Why? Oh—you don't have any friends?"
"No, I do, but I can't tell who they are because they're undercover just like
me. I could get fired if I told you about them."
"So you are working." I exclaimed.
"Some days and some days not."
"I thought you'd say Taryn."
"Only one question. It's my turn."
"Fine."
"Okay…," The amusement and light-heartedness was gone and a grave
determination flashed across his features. "What do you want from me?"
"I…I want you to save my brother."
There it was. That was the truth and Jace saw it instantly.
He started to shake his head, but I interrupted, "Your turn."
"Fine." He sighed and waited. Quiet.
"Why didn't you say Taryn before?"
There was no evasion, he said easily, "Because she's not my friend. She never
was."
"But—"
He lifted an eyebrow and I stopped.
"Why were you with Mallon?"
"I don't like this game…"
"Answer the question."
I took a breath and relented reluctantly, "It started because I was helping
out someone else. He found out what I could do and wanted me to work for him
and…it was supposed to kill two birds with one stone, but…"
"It got complicated."
"It got complicated."
"Your turn." Jace offered.
I didn't wait, but asked instantly, "Do you still love Taryn?"
"Do you realize that you're the only one who brings her up?" Jace
countered.
"Do you?" I asked again.
"This is…this game isn't being used for what's it supposed to do."
"I think it's doing exactly what it was invented for." I said swiftly. "Truth
or dare. That's your truth."
"Yes." Jace breathed out. "I still love Taryn and yes, for your next
question, I will always love Taryn. She…she was my light that I saw at the end
of my tunnel. She…was my second chance in life."
"And now she's with someone else…"
Jace sighed and shifted to get more comfortable. He rasped huskily, "Since
we're being all truthful in this weird other-world closet…Taryn was always
Brian's. I knew that, she knew that, but Brian always suspected the worst. It
killed him and…Taryn wasn't supposed to be my second chance in life—with me. She
was…just an ideal that I had in my head to get me through. She got a normal
life. High school. A family. College. Even a normal boyfriend—or—normal, for
me."
"And if things were different? If you could've been with her?"
Truth and Dare was left to the sidelines and Jace answered, "I would've
ruined her."
"Because she's not strong enough for you?"
"Because Taryn is supposed to be in the spotlight. I live in the shadows. I
won't ever live in the spotlight. Minute I do is the minute I die."
I heard him and I heard the truth of his world. Saddened, I murmured, "This
game sucks."
"How about you and Mallon?"
"Why didn't we work out?" I grinned sardonically.
"No. How'd you leave him? A guy like that doesn't get left."
I sighed and murmured, "Since we're being all truthful…because I walked out
the front door and when Marcus tried to find me, to force me back—he realized
that everything about me had been a lie. I lied to him for five years."
"I lied to my friends and family for six years."
"We're good liars. We've got that in common."
Jace murmured, hoarse, thoughtful, "When you lie for that long…it's hard
sometimes…"
"Remembering the truth?"
"Yeah."
"Yeah." I breathed out.
Jace grinned lightly, "I feel oddly close to you right now."
"Yeah, well, just don't fart. You'll ruin the moment."
"Guess what?" Jace teased.
I caught my breath and uttered, "You didn't…"
"No. I didn't, but I would've if I could. The machine's not working
tonight."
"Did you just refer to your ass as 'the machine'?"
"Don't you?"
"Oh my god. No!"
"Why not?" He was serious.
"This is why girls smell nice and are prettier than boys. This is why you are
a guy. You like farts, we do not. You call your ass 'the machine', we would
never think of that. Your species can be disgusting."
"That's a whole lot of 'blah, blah, blah' to be true. You do call your ass
'the machine', don't you?" Jace nodded, knowingly.
And here it was folks. The man who brought two drug empires to their knees
now had a grin dumbly plastered to his face as he enjoyed a conversation about
naming body parts and threatening to fart.
"You're disgusting."
"Blah, blah, blah."
"Jace." I said sharply.
"What?"
"Shut up." And I curled on my bed, once again.
The bathroom door rattled at the moment and I shot up, my heartbeat pounded
between my ears as I instinctually stayed behind Jace.
Jace was still, but the tension rolled off him like shimmering heat
waves.
A second later, someone pounded on the door and then yelled, muffled through
the walls, "Hey, Rafe—your toilet's locked."
Whatever answer she gave must've been good enough because the lumbering drunk
lumbered away.
Breath escaped my lips once again and I stayed up, the relaxation had
vanished in an instant.
I caught a quick movement from the corner of my eye and saw that Jace relaxed
his hold on a gun that was lain beside him.
"Were you going to shoot him?" I asked as I wondered, dryly, if it would've
been too loser-esque to actually pat my chest in that moment. I needed to pound
my heart, make sure it was still beating..
"If it came to it," Jace glanced at me, "Yes."
Call me jaded, but I was reassured and able to lay back down.
The charming comic was gone in that instant and I ventured in the bated
silence between us, "Is that what happens when someone surprises you and walks
in on you?"
Jace thought a moment or he just didn't want to answer, but he did,
reluctantly, "It's a handicap from my life. It's dangerous, but it's
necessary."
"So if I'm just being quiet and I walk in…what then?"
"That won't happen."
"Why not? It happened just now."
"It's different." Jace rolled over and held my gaze. "I was distracted and
not ready. If you're not in the room with me, then I won't be distracted."
"So I distract you?"
Jace smiled faintly and answered, "You amuse me."
Another question teased at me, but I already knew the answer. I just wanted
to make sure… "Could you really kill them all out there? If it came down to
it."
"Do you really want to know the answer to that question?"
"I already think I do."
"I think you have a preconceived notion, but you don't really want to know
what I can do. No one wants to know that."
"I like to know my stack of cards." I noted.
"I'm not your stack of cards." Jace countered and propped his head on his
elbow. "Why do you want me to save your brother?"
"Truth and dare is over." I said lightly.
"Let's play again."
I rolled on my side to face him fully Both of us laid on our sides, nearly
touching the other. "I'd like to know about Brian."
"I'd like to know about Krein."
"You already know about Krein. He was your best friend."
"He was your brother and I'd like to know him as you do."
"I don't know my brother."
We were caught in another game. Two opponents who constantly baited,
withdrew, and measured the other to gain a foothold.
Neither of us were winning.
"You must if you think I'm going to save him. And by the way, breaking him
out of prison is out the question. Your brother's there for a reason."
"You got him into it, you can get him out."
Jace smirked, knowingly, "Is that what you think? I got him into that
life?"
"No. You don't know what I'm thinking." I said softly.
"For the record, I met your brother because of that life. He was already
selling when I recruited him."
"So you turned him pro. Thank you so much." I said quietly, sarcastically,
with an extra dose of menace.
"Are you seriously going to blame me for your brother's fall from grace? He
wasn't exactly high on some pedestal when I first saw him. He was shooting crack
into someone's arm by a syringe. What a pedestal."
I bared my teeth in a smile, "You talk as if you're trying to shock me."
"Aren't I?"
"I've been there. Done that. I grew up on the streets."
"No." Jace shook his head. "You grew up in a home. You grew up to be
someone's lover that you lied to—not too different from everyone else's life.
And you might have some street smarts, but you're not the BoyWonder of Survival
of the Fittest and Most Feral."
"You don't know—"
"Have you killed someone?" Jace shut me up. "Have you taken your gun out,
knowing that you were going to end someone's life in a moment? Knowing that
person had a daughter, a wife, a husband, a brother, a child of their own—and
you were going to rip that person from them? And have you done that, thought
that, and still pulled the trigger?"
I didn't blink. "Is that what you thought when you killed Sal Galverson? That
his daughter would hate you for the rest of her life? Enough to make her know
where you were and to tell me? Did that run through your head?"
"No." Jace spoke, somber. "Because by that time, those thoughts were just
background chatter. All I thought about—I wanted to kill him. He was the lowest
form of life and he had murdered my brother. The fact that he had a gun in
Taryn's face—it was just icing on the cake."
I held my breath.
Jace added, "I enjoyed killing Sal. And I'd do it again, if he were
here."
"My oh my." I taunted. "Isn't this a touching rendition of who's the
toughest?"
Jace laughed and laid back, "Oh—hands down—you. You've got ice in your veins,
but you're smart enough to keep it from freezing your heart. I gotta give you
props for that."
"Some days, in the right mood—I don't think so."
"I do." Jace's confidence was shattering.
"I don't think that's a compliment."
"Not supposed to be. I just know who you are. I recognize what you are." Jace
turned his head and turned his glittering eyes on me. They pinned me down.
"And what's that?" I asked, not wanting to hear his answer.
"You're just like me, Maya. You've gone the distance and you've got what it
takes to do it again. And again. And again. And you still hold onto that soul
that you think about so much." Jace nodded. "I know what boils deep inside of
you. You're ice on top, but you're fire beneath it all. You're smart enough and
calculating enough to turn it off and lose that fire, but you don't. That's who
you are. Your entire life—it's all about keeping what's in your heart. You know
you could lose that care that you have, but you don't. That's our fight. You and
me. We can fight whoever's out there, but the fight that we really worry
about—it's inside of us."
His words hit my target and my insides crumbled.
Shaken, I whispered, "Shut up."
"The thing is—is that you're so scared to death that you've really lost your
soul that…you don't stop to realize how much you're alive." Jace suddenly sat
up. "You're so scared of growing numb to life that…you don't trust yourself. You
don't think you feel what you actually feel. How ironic is that?"
"I think…"
"That's your problem, Maya. You think too much. Stop thinking.
It turns you into a robot." Jace said swiftly as he flipped on his side and laid
his head down.
I was left, dumb, and speechless.
"See, right now—you're just thinking how you don't have anything to say. Stop
it. It only leads to badness."
I saw red instead and spat out, in anger, "You're fucking arrogant, you know
that? You think you know me so well, but you don't know anything about me—"
Jace flipped back and was in my face, "How the tides have turned. You're the
one who thinks she knows everything about me. You throw Taryn's name in my face
every other hour. You talk about my brother like he's some memory to be mocked.
And now—when I share a little insight to your life—you balk at it. Eat the shit
that you serve up, Maya. Taste it and tell me if you like it."
"Shut up."
"No." Jace said evenly. "You're not the only one in this closet that can
think, feel, and see beneath the surface. Get used to it and start realizing
that I'm a fucking human being, just like you, except—right now—I'm thinking I
have a bit more compassion for the human soul than you."
"You don't even know what you're talking about." I whispered, blind.
"Don't I? You blame me for Krein's betrayal. You think I can turn him back,
like I can make him right or something. Not going to happen. One of these
days—you're going to have to face facts and realize that your brother chose
stupidly and selfishly and he's not the brother that you idolize him to be."
"You're wrong."
"No. I'm really not." Jace murmured, heartbroken.