Abandon - Meg Cabot [101]
“Shhh,” he said, smoothing my hair with a rough hand. “It doesn’t have to be like that. Richard knows who I am. I can tell Richard. I can have him tell your mother, if you want, that he knows me, and we ran away together and got married. I can even give him letters from you, if you want, to give to her —”
“John,” I said, lifting my head to look at him. “What century do you live in? Nobody writes letters anymore, let alone runs off to get married at seventeen. And if you give letters from me to Richard Smith to give to my mom, not only will my dad make sure Richard gets arrested for colluding in my disappearance, he’ll probably have him taken to some secret location to be water-boarded. Do you even know who my father is?”
Now John was kissing my hair. “I don’t care who your father is.”
“Well, you should care, John,” I said, “because I have news for you. I’m not the kind of girl who can just vanish into thin air and not have my disappearance get noticed. As you yourself once pointed out, there are people who care about me. Maybe not as many as I used to think, considering my grandmother is a Fury, but enough. I just can’t believe you would do this. Especially as someone who gets to have a whole night dedicated to him because his body never got a decent burial. Am I right? Coffin Night is about you, isn’t it?” He neither confirmed nor denied it, just went on kissing me. “You have to admit, it’s not very fair that you’re not allowing me the same basic courtesy.”
“Pierce.” He finally lifted his head and looked down into my soft, wet eyes. His own gaze was far from soft. It was as steel-flecked and determined as I’d ever seen it. His voice was even harder. “I know what you’re trying to do. And the answer is no. You can be upset with me. That’s fine. You’ve been upset with me before, and I survived. You’re usually upset with me, so I’m actually used to it. I’m prepared to sit here and have you be upset with me for months, if necessary. For years, if that’s what it takes. Just so long as I know you’re somewhere I can protect you.”
His arms tightened around me. They were as hard as his voice and gaze. “You don’t know what they’re capable of. What they did to Jade — that was nothing. They must have realized she wasn’t you. If it had been you, what they would have done…I can’t even tell you. Because it would have been unspeakably evil.”
I’d stopped crying. Not just because I’d realized it wasn’t going to do any good — he was onto me — but because something in his voice had made me forget my own sorrow for a moment, and recognize someone else’s.
His.
“When I first saw her lying there this morning,” he went on, “I did think she was you for a second or two. If it had been you…well, I don’t know what I would have done.”
I thought I saw something — a flicker of pain — in his eyes. It was there, and then it was gone, like the fish that sometimes flashed beneath the surface of the water when I rode my bike across the bridge above the highway.
Whatever John had been through — whatever they had put him through, whatever I had put him through — had left a scar. On the inside this time, where I couldn’t touch it.
This was something else for which I was accountable.
“So you can’t try to leave here again,” he said in a hard voice. “Do you understand? No matter what. You can’t leave this time. It won’t be easy, but I at least have a chance of protecting you here. Out there, I have none.”
I don’t know what made me do it.
But I reached up and ran a hand along his face. I should have been angry with him.
And I was.
But I was also sure that despite how tightly he’d sealed those doors, there had to be another way out.
I knew I was going to find it. I had to. Not to get away from John, but to get back to my world to let my mother know I was all right. And to help prove Uncle Chris was innocent. And to make sure my grandmother and all the rest of the people being possessed by Furies were brought to justice, or at least didn’t hurt anyone else, including John, ever again.
Because