Secrets - [Guardian Trilogy 01] (32 page)

“I didn’t hurt Juliet, but I'd be happy to tear you to pieces,” Holden snarled.

“So maybe you didn’t do it personally, but did you lead them here?” Quintus kept after him, ignoring the threat.

“No,
I
never came here, and
I
hadn’t told her anything, so there's no way Olivia was a target due to me. I was careful. I didn’t needlessly endanger her life, but you on the other hand—what’s to say you didn’t lead them here? Preventing a new recruit would be a big deal, big rewards for that. Way above my pay grade. I bet they put a tail on
you,
when they noticed you’d taken an unusual interest in someone.”

“When did she die?”

“Not long after you were here,” Holden answered acidly. “Could you have been more careless? I thought your people were supposed to value life.”

They continued to bicker and point fingers at one another. I willed some of the fog away from my mind by thinking about Juliet. When my breathing slowed, I stood up.

“No,” I said. They both looked at me in surprise. “They've been watching me much longer than that.” I went to my bedroom and grabbed the picture that had captured the hand. I took it back in the living room and handed it to them. They exchanged frowns.

“When did you take this?” Holden asked

“Right after the first dream.”

Quintus looked confused, but Holden considered it briefly before dismissing it. “They couldn’t have known then. They either have another extremely well connected source or you're just a magnet for trouble.” Holden turned to glare at Quintus again. “I assume your people keep it under wraps when someone like Olivia is born.”

“Of course,” Quintus said with a fair amount of his own annoyance.

“Well, isn’t it possible, if the guardians have been looking over me my whole life, the other side would've known as well? Granted everything seemed to happen at once, but thinking back, I've felt something in the dark watching me for a lot longer than I’ve been aware of the two of you. It's possible neither of you led them here. You just stumbled upon me before they made their move.”

“Not unless there's a traitor in our ranks,” Quintus said thoughtfully.

“Why didn’t you tell me about the picture?” Holden said at the same time.

“Excuse me? I know you're not talking to
me
about keeping secrets.” Holden had the decency to look mildly ashamed, so I went on. “I didn’t tell you, because I didn’t know what the hell was happening. I didn’t know I needed to tell you. I didn’t know I had a reason to fear for my life because
I wasn't told
I was in danger.” I began to pace too. “That both of you have been doing things for ‘my own good,’ without giving me a choice in the matter just makes me . . . mental.”

Quintus and Holden looked alarmed; my voice was rising to a full out scream.
”And I didn’t know this damn hand might be an important detail to someone. Stupid me—I was busy trying to determine how I got a double exposure like that. Perhaps if either of you had told me what was happening, I could have better protected my loved ones. Maybe Juliet would still be alive.” Anger was so hot, it was almost blinding—but my head was clear. Crystal clear, as if for the first time I could truly see them for who they were. And I didn’t like either of them.

“Well, I’m sorry if I didn’t make the decision you would've had me make, Olivia,” Holden yelled back. “I could've told you everything from the start, and you would've been killed. Or I could've not told you anything and kept you safe. I’m sorry I valued your life over how much you knew about me. I had no idea this is where it was headed. Had I known—”

“Had you known—then what?” I had never seen Holden so unhinged, without his walls and facades—and it didn’t make me feel tender toward him one little bit. “You would've been able to kill me? You would've stayed away? You would've reported me to your bosses? What exactly would you've done differently?”

“I don’t know. What would you've had me do? What do you want from me? I've risked everything for you. All I want is to see you safe and happy. Tell me what you expect from me. You want me to give my life? Fine, it’s yours. You want me to become a traitor? Fine, I’m already there. I will do anything you want. I fell in love you and I had no choice!” The unemotional Holden was nowhere to be found. His voice was rough with feeling. The air stirred between us and rage bubbled over.

“Maybe you should've just stayed away from me,” I said bitterly.

His self-righteous anger evaporated. He didn’t speak for several moments, but when he did his voice was tired and raw. “You’re right. I should've stayed away. I was selfish. I wanted you more than anything. I just wanted a little piece of something good in my life. And no matter what you feel now, you wanted me too. I'm sure of that.”

“Did I, Holden? Did I really? Or did you make me feel that way?” I could feel the hurt in Holden as surely as if I’d slapped him.

“I didn’t make you feel anything, Liv. I can’t fake feelings like this. I used my abilities to keep you from questioning me too much, to help you with your grief, to clear your mind. But your emotions have and always will be your own.”

  I shut my eyes. Was this true? Could what Holden and I have be real? I didn’t care if he was a jinni, a Hell’s Angel, or a water buffalo. If what I felt for him was real, it was worth fighting for. “What about Christopher? Was that a real suicide?” My hands were shaking. I didn’t want to know the answer, but I had to ask. Everything had to be in the open now. Holden became every still, and he stared at me for a moment. I knew he sensed danger in my question, but I wasn’t sure if he could feel the panic, the fear, and the foolish hope that still burned underneath it. His stance became defensive, and his eyes hardened once again.

“No, it wasn’t.”

“Who killed him?”

“I did.”

I closed my eyes and felt the last of my hope slip away and fresh anger swell.

“And I don’t regret it,” he continued wrathfully. “I'd do it again. He didn’t deserve you. He didn’t deserve to live. He was vermin. If you'd heard him, felt his intentions, saw the things he planned to do to you.…” Holden’s anger rose with each word I could feel it thick in the air.

“How could you possibly know what he was going to do?” I wanted to throw things at him, but I held my ground.

“He confessed everything to me.”

“That doesn’t mean anything. People say a lot of things and never act on them. You may have been justified, you may not have been, but what the hell were you thinking? You can’t just go around killing anyone who threatens me.”

“I was protecting you!” he bellowed.

“From what? You tried to kill me twice by your own admission—
after
this supposed exercise of protection. You were my biggest threat all along, not him. Don’t say this was about me. There's no way this was about me.”

Holden laughed without humor. “Everything has been about you since the day I met you. I haven’t been able to get you out of my fucking mind. From that first moment at the bar, nothing has been the same. Everything I've done has been about you. Everything is you.”

“No.” I shook my head. “This wasn’t about me. It was about you.
You
were planning to kill me. It shouldn’t have mattered what he said he was going to do—in your mind, you thought I’d be dead. This
was
all about you—” The stabbing pain of saying aloud what Holden’s intentions for me had been stopped me for a moment. When I could speak again, I did—with conviction and venom. “You were jealous—that’s it, isn’t it? Jealous that he had a relationship with me that you knew you could never have. You killed Christopher because you couldn’t stand the fact that you couldn’t have me like he did.” I couldn’t control the rage spreading through me like wildfire. It was wonderful. I was free of grief. I couldn’t have held it back if I’d wanted to.

“It’s true, isn’t it?
Isn’t it
?”

“I don’t know.” Holden sounded harassed, wouldn’t make eye contact. “I don’t do things like that. I've lived this long and kept my sanity because I'm not governed by my emotions like a pathetic human. I've survived longer than most in my position because I don't feel anything! I may have been jealous, but I wouldn’t have known it. It wasn’t a familiar sensation.” I could tell I pushed the right button with him. His eyes burned with their own anger and resentment. His voice was soft and dangerous, but I wasn’t afraid. He was the one who should be afraid of me.

“Well, don’t worry, Holden, I'm sure you’ll be fine. That's really all that matters, isn’t it? Looking out for number one, isn’t that right? Screw the rest of the world and the damage you cause and the people you hurt, so long as you come through unscathed.” I was still yelling.

“How can you say that to me?”

Quintus came up behind me and laid a calming hand on my shoulder. “Come, let’s go.”

“I'm not going anywhere with
you
.” I was angry at everything right now, Quintus included. No one was safe from my warpath. “You're not without blame in any of this. You knew what happened to Christopher. That's why you came to my apartment. You knew someone close to me was targeted by jinn, and you wanted to make sure I was okay. You didn’t warn me. Had you given me any sort of a warning at all, my best friend would be alive.” My voice managed to become higher and louder still. My hands tightened into fists.

Quintus looked helpless in the face of the wrath that I’d turned on him. I felt consumed—I wanted to hurt them.

“Liv,” Holden said, coming up behind me.

“Don’t touch me,” I jerked away before he even did. I swung around to face him and pounded my fists on his chest. I loved him, and he’d done this to me. He kept details, important details from me. Always asking me to trust him when he didn’t deserve my trust at all. This was worse than Christopher cheating on me. I expected it from Christopher. I naively believed Holden cared for me. I believed we could make our relationship work. He took my beating.

“I thought you cared about me,” I sputtered. “How could you do this? You ruined everything.”

“Can’t you stop this?” Quintus asked Holden.

“No,” Holden growled, shaking his head and looking far from unaffected. He caught my arms mid-swing, then closed his eyes and took deep breaths. “The walls are down. They're not going back up.”

I didn’t know what they were talking about, and the idea that there was more that they were keeping from me was the last straw. I ripped my wrists from Holden’s grasp.

“Fuck you both. Do whatever the hell you want, but stay away from me.” I snatched up my purse and stormed out. “Stay away from me!” I repeated with vehemence, slamming the door to my apartment behind me. I ran down the stairs and straight to my car. Holden and Quintus caught up with me before I could back out of the space. I locked my doors and kept backing up, not caring that they were standing behind me.

“Olivia, you can’t leave without one of us. It isn’t safe,” Holden said from the other side of my window. He seemed to have regained some control; his stony expression was back in place.

 “What you're feeling … well, it isn’t all your feelings,” Quintus added, glancing at Holden.

I flipped them off and drove away with a squeal of the tires.

Twenty Two

I watched her drive away and felt everything collapse around me. She wouldn’t listen. Why would she? When emotions were running this high, being reasonable was out of the question. The weight on my chest threatened to crush me. How did this woman tie me up in so many knots in such a short amount of time? I was resentful and grateful. The scene in the apartment was an unmitigated disaster. Her emotions escalated so fast, there was little doubt that I had involuntarily influenced her with my own. Or perhaps she really was that angry with me. Part of me wished it was the former rather than the latter, but I knew clinging to any sort of hope was a mistake. She wouldn’t come back, not now that she knew.