That we’d be together forever. I believed her. Mostly.”
Empathy welled inside me. He’d been played by my aunt like a fool. She’d used him any way she could. “Don’t tell me you were in love with her.”
“Hardly.” He glared at me. “Don’t you know by now, Samantha? I’m an opportunist, always have been. Natalie represented an opportunity for me to be more than what I was. I took it. In fact, I jumped at it, sacrificing everything in the process. I deserve this as my punishment.”
“You’re not that bad.”
That earned another laugh that echoed coldly off the dark buildings surrounding us. “No, I’m worse.”
“You broke up with Jordan to save her. That proves to me that there’s still something inside you that gives a damn.”
His laugh broke off and he sent a look at me so sharp that it almost cut. “You don’t know anything about what happened with Jordan.”
He started walking again, but I scooted around to block his path. The two of us were momentarily lit up by a set of headlights from a car turning the corner. It only showed me how pale Stephen was. And that even though he shivered from the cold, there was also a sheen of perspiration on his forehead. He looked sick.
“Maybe you’re right,” I said. “Maybe I’m just guessing. But I saw something in your eyes at the mall. You don’t like hurting her. I’m not saying I get it. I mean, to me Jordan’s a total bitch. But maybe down deep—maybe with you—she was different. Maybe she saw the real you, and vice versa. Maybe it was true love.”
“Shut up.” His voice shook. “It’s over—everything is. I’m going into stasis and right now I need to be anywhere but here.”
When he moved again, I literally shoved him back a step. “Stop. Just stop. My friends...they can help you. I’m serious.”
He didn’t look at me, he looked at the ground by my feet. “Yeah, right. They can help by putting a knife through my heart.” He rubbed his forehead as if his head ached. “I still have just enough self-preservation to want to crawl off somewhere private if I’m going to die tonight. I don’t want to be killed. If that makes me a coward, then fine. I’m a damn coward.”
With that, he pushed me out of the way.
“Stephen, don’t go. Please.” My voice caught.
He looked over his shoulder at me, his face shadowed by the small amount of light from the nearby streetlamp. “I’m sorry, Samantha. I’m sorry I did what Natalie told me to do. I shouldn’t have taken your soul.”
My eyes burned. “You can make it up to me by giving it back. Simple.”
“Nothing’s simple anymore. For me or for you.”
Regular reasoning wasn’t working. I needed to up my game. “What do you want? Protection from my friends? I’ve already asked them not to hurt you. They won’t.”
“Sure, they won’t.”
“What else do you want?”
“Bargaining, Samantha?” A glimmer of a cold smile played at his lips. “Has it really come to that?” Then the smile died. “I know what this is. You’re trying to slow me down so your buddies can catch up. Aren’t you?”
“No, I came after you by myself. Nobody else saw you.”
There was no more patience in his gaze. “Goodbye, Samantha.”
I clutched onto his arm, digging my fingernails in hard. “You’d really walk away, just like that? I guess I was wrong about you. You really are a selfish asshole.”
He spun to face me, grabbing the front of my shirt and yanking me forward. My anger fell away, replaced by fear. He had nothing to lose right now. And there was nothing friendly or kind in his eyes. Instead, all I saw was endless pain. “You’re right. I am a selfish asshole. But you were also right about Jordan. I love her and don’t want to hurt her. She’ll be better off when I’m dead. Because this stasis? I hope like hell it kills me tonight. I don’t know what I’d turn into if it doesn’t.”
He shoved me back so hard that I fell to the ground, twisting my ankle. As I scrambled to get back to my feet, he started running away.
I tried to pursue, but white-hot pain shot through my ankle. I whimpered out loud, limping as fast as I could in the direction he’d fled. I got as far as the next block before I realized he was nowhere to be seen.
He could die tonight from stasis and he still had my soul,