it seared me when I looked at it straight on like this.
He was the boy I'd always wanted to rescue but now the darkness he was running from had found its way within him and I didn't know how to fight it off. I didn't even know if I should be trying or if I should just let myself fall into it and be consumed by it. Or maybe I should match it with some demons of my own and let the whole world burn for us.
"Do you love him?" Chase asked me, his throat bobbing as his hand slid from my hair to my cheek, his thumb teasing my bottom lip like he was committing the shape of it to memory. "JJ."
"Chase..."
"It's okay," he said, his fingers drifting onto my neck as he inhaled deeply. "You make him smile in a way I haven't seen since the day you were taken from us. I thought being a Harlequin broke that in him. I thought what we did to Clive that night out in the woods was the end of those smiles. But it was never about any of that. It was you. It's always been you for all of us. And I want him to get his happily ever after when I'm gone. I want him to have you."
I jerked back as his words hit me and he let his hands fall to my waist as I sat upright, replaying them in my mind and wondering how I was supposed to explain what I felt for JJ to him. What I felt for Rick and Fox and him too. They were my boys, and I was their girl, but I was also the cause of so much bad for all of them. I was the divide in their group, I was the reason for at least as much pain in them as I'd suffered myself while we'd been separated. And now I was a target on their backs, dragging the devil I'd collected along my journey to their front door and hoping they could stand against it while holding the key to drawing it off in my fist.
"Shawn said he'll stop the war on the Harlequins," I said, not answering his questions because none of that mattered. Or it was all that mattered. I wasn't even sure, but what I was sure of was that I could do something to end this violence. "He had us all on our knees tonight, Chase. He could have killed all four of us as easy as breathing and the only reason he held off was because it didn't suit his twisted idea of fun. But I know it won't be that easy next time. And I also know how to stop him."
"How?" Chase demanded, his eyes flashing with violence as his fingers gripped my waist tightly.
"I just have to give him what he wants." I shrugged, trying not to taste the bile that coated my tongue with those words or feel the shiver which danced its way down my spine as Chase shook his head beneath me, knowing what I was going to say before I had even uttered the word. "Me."
"Never," Chase snarled, his fingers biting into my skin like he thought holding onto me tight enough would be all it took to keep me there. "I would die a thousand times over, suffer every day of my life in his torture, do whatever the fuck it took to make sure that never happens, little one."
My heart leapt at the furious dedication in his gaze but I shoved his hands off of me, moving to climb off of the bed as I refused to let him sway me from what I was thinking.
Chase caught my wrist before I could make it to my feet, yanking me down onto the mattress beside him and throwing his weight over me as he pinned me beneath him with a grunt of pain as he clearly jarred his leg.
"Swear to me that you will stop thinking what you're thinking," he snarled. "Promise me you're not actually considering letting that monster have you for the sake of our stained souls?"
"I could end this!" I shouted, losing my cool and shoving my palms against his chest as I tried to force him back, but Chase might as well have been a slab of rock for all the good it did.
"You think leaving us again would end it? You would destroy us, Rogue. Fox would fall apart completely