leaves us. “I do love him,” I reply, looking down at the scuffed up dirt at my feet. “But I like you too.”
A breath leaves Jericho’s chest, like he’d been holding it, waiting to see what I said. I raise my eyes to look at him, finding his attention locked on me. It’s an intensely possessive look, one that tells me that for some reason, he still wants me. Fuck knows why.
“It makes me feel incredibly disloyal,” I admit, the bitterness of that emotion thick on my tongue.
“So what do you wanna do, Jet?”
I throw my arms up in frustration. “I don’t know!” I say, as I get up and begin to pace back and forth. “I’ve loved a single person for my entire life, and it’s him. He’s been my friend. My family. My partner. He has my heart,” I rant, dashing away a tear when it dares to leak out of my eye. Living in the troupe, there was never any room for weaknesses like that. But ever since I’ve been here, I keep having these lapses in emotion—and not just crying, either. Like I’m cracking, and all these feelings want to come leaking out.
Jericho gets to his feet and leans against a tree, watching me with quiet observation.
I swallow hard. “He’s the only person I could ever trust in the troupe, and he…”
“He what?” Jericho prods.
“He worked behind my back!” I snap. “He broke me out of the troupe without fucking telling me, and I hate him for it,” I say harshly, my voice sharp and loud and entirely too full of the dark emotion I’ve kept buried beneath my chest for weeks.
Breathing hard, I shake my head, not at the male in front of me, but at Cliff. At all the thoughts I’ve suppressed ever since I ran that night. Of regret. The anger. The not knowing if he’s okay. The doubts about what I should do. The horrible guilt I’ve had not just for leaving him, but for the attraction I feel toward Jericho. And then even more crippling guilt every time I feel relief that I’m gone or hope or safety or happiness. I shouldn’t be able to feel any of those things—not without Cliff. It feels like a betrayal.
“I don’t fucking know if he’s okay or if he’s dead,” I say, the blood in my body frozen into palpable fear for what I don’t want to face. “I should’ve refused to go. I should’ve stayed.”
The truth of that admission eats me up and spits me out. I stare at the ground, hating myself, the evidence of my shame slipping down my cheek.
Jericho is quiet.
“See?” I tell him, my words spoken through clenched teeth. “Don’t fucking like me, Jericho. This attraction between us? It has to stop. Because apart from the fact that I’m a self-proclaimed bitch, I’ve only cared about one person in my life, and that’s Cliff, and I abandoned him. I’m a shitty fucking person, and you don’t want to get tangled up in my knots.”
Jericho makes a thoughtful humming noise in his chest. “You’re not a shitty person, Jet.” I scoff in dismissal, but he ignores me. “And I already told you, it’s too late. I like you and that’s that. But think about this: if you’d been able to get him out of the troupe, would you have?”
“Of course,” I answer without hesitation.
He shrugs. “Well, then. You can’t get mad at him for doing that for you. And you shouldn’t think so low of yourself for honoring his plan and getting the fuck out of there. That’s what he wanted. And he wants you to be happy.”
I don’t reply, because what is there to say? I shouldn’t have let Cliff be a martyr. I should’ve dragged his ass with me, consequences be damned. Running for our lives while Kaazu tracked us would’ve been better than living with this lump of guilt and heartbroken agony. It gets larger every day, forcing me to drag it behind me like a ball and chain weighted around each ankle.
“As for you and me…” He steps forward until I’m forced to look up at him. “I already told you, I like you. I’m not going to stop just because of all this. I’m going to help you, and I’m going to be your friend, and yeah, I’m going to want to fuck you, but you’re the boss, Jet. If you don’t want me, fine. I’ll leave it alone. But if you’re just holding back