Angie and Aiden left the subway at the Chinatown stop, leaving Tristan and Lex riding alone towards Silver Spring with their instructions. They rode in silence and the hum of the train seemed deafening. Tristan had not looked at her, but in the profile of his face Alexandra could see the tension in his jaw as he clenched his teeth. She knew that she should say something, but no words came to her.
She waited.
The metro stopped at station after station. Swarms of humans dressed in business casual pushed their way into and out of the other cars at each stop, but Tristan telepathically held the doors of their car closed. They remained alone.
How many times had they done this? How many times had she waited anxiously as Tristan tried to calm his frustration, tried to find a way to say what he needed to say that wouldn’t push her away?
Hundreds, it seemed. Thousands. This tension filled every unexpected break in their conversations. It hovered above them when they went to sleep at night, settling between their bodies when Lex instinctively rolled onto her side at the very edge of the bed. It lingered at the kitchen table in the morning, its thickness dependent upon how many times she had woken up screaming the night before. Some days, she could barely see him through it.
Suddenly, she was overcome with weariness. She shouldn’t be with Tristan; he deserved far better. But she couldn’t bring herself to leave. It was only with him, for brief moments here and there, that she was able to pretend that she was more than the monster she had once been.
“And what sort of monster is that, Lex?” Tristan snapped. Her mental shields had slipped and he had caught the last of her thoughts. He knew how much it bothered her but he didn’t seem to care just then. “Or should I call you ‘Soul Stealer’?”
“Don’t—” she began.
“Why not?” he countered. He turned toward her, his face flushed and his eyes narrowed. The veins on his neck and forehead throbbed as his blood angrily surged through them, and it made him ugly. For the first time since she’d known him, Lex was afraid. “It’s a good enough name for Angie. Are you going to tell me what it means? Are you going to tell me what the hell is going on with you and her?”
He didn’t wait for an answer. “No, of course you’re not. You never tell me a damn thing. And why should you? I’ve only been there for you for three years. I only saved your immortal life. I only take care of you and protect you. What have I done to earn your trust?”
His clipped, sarcastic words cut at her and Alexandra found herself looking away helplessly.
“Maybe I ought to ask Angie what she did, because she obviously knows more about you than I do. Did she find you gutted and singed, covered in blisters? Did she take you home, give you blood, bring you back from the brink of death?”
“I never asked you to do that,” she whispered, though she knew that was not the point.
Tristan laughed bitterly. “Ever the martyr, Lex.”
She looked up at him. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“You tell me,” he replied. “You barely drink enough blood to stay alive. You hardly ever eat. You don’t tell me anything about your past—where you came from or how the hell you ended up in that burned down building. I don’t even know how old you are now, how old you were when you were made. All I know is that you hate it when I read your thoughts, you scream in your sleep, and you’re afraid all the time. You can’t share anything with anyone; you have to carry it all yourself. What the hell are you punishing yourself for, Lex?”
She gritted her teeth. He was so close to the truth—too close—and she couldn’t stand it. She couldn’t talk about this. The panic welled up inside of her, bursting from her mouth in torrent of harsh words. It was her last line of defense against him. “I never asked you to save me. I never asked you to stay with me, Tristan. You could have left me in the ashes for all I cared. Most days I wish to god that you had. So I’m sorry that I’m such a burden to you, but that was your decision. And you are a bastard for trying to hold that over my head. Why should I tell you anything when you’ll probably just use that against me as well?”
“Fuck!” Tristan growled. He slammed the heel of his hand against the metal pole in the middle of the aisle and it bent from the blow. “That’s not what I’m trying to do here! I just want you to trust me. I want to know you. Do you have any idea what it’s like, living with a stranger?”
“You do know me,” she argued. “We’ve been together for three years. You know how I like my coffee. You know my favorite color, my favorite book and movie. You know which side of the bed I like to sleep on…I could go on and on. You know that I care about you. Why can’t you let this go? Why are you so desperate to have these insignificant details?”
“Because they’re not insignificant!” he shouted at her. “They’re what make you who you are. And you’re the one who can’t let it go. You’re so scared. Do you think I can’t see it? I’m not stupid, Lex. I know something happened to you—someone hurt you. For a long time. And for some strange, fucked up reason, you seem to blame yourself.”
“Stop, stop, stop,” she cried. She couldn’t listen to this any longer and she had the childish urge to plug her ears and hum as loud as she could.
“And whatever it was, Angie knows about it, doesn’t she?” he pressed on heedlessly. “She knew about it the night we met her. You were so freaked out when you came down from her penthouse and you wouldn’t tell me what was wrong.”
“Look,” Alexandra said hastily. “It was nothing. It doesn’t matter. I—I don’t know what Angie was talking about. I don’t know why she was calling me S—Soul—” The name caught in her throat, tying her tongue into a useless knot.
“You can’t even say it!” he exclaimed. “Don’t lie to me. What does that name mean? Why does it make you so upset? Why does Angie know things about you when I don’t even know?”
“She ripped it from my mind, all right!” Lex shouted. “She broke in and used what she saw to torment me, just like he did—over and over and over!”
“What?” Tristan gasped. “Who? I don’t understand.”
He came to her and tried to touch her hair, but she put her hands up, turning away from him. She was breathing hard, shaking.
What the hell had she just done?
“Lex—”
“Don’t,” she hissed. “Don’t ask me any more questions.”
Tristan sighed behind her, sounding tired and beaten. Lex would have thought he’d be happy that he’d gotten an answer out of her. It was certainly more than she had ever intended to say. More than she had ever wanted to give anyone. How much more could he possibly ask for?
He moved closer to her until she could feel the warmth of his body against her back. It made her cringe in spite of herself.
“I don’t want to hurt you.” In spite of his closeness, his familiar oath seemed muted. Distant.
“Then don’t,” she replied.
They were silent again for a long moment. Lex tried to slow down her breath. It was an old trick; as long as you could breathe deeply and regularly, you could let the world go.
But it didn’t work this time. The moment was too awkward. She racked her brain, searching for something to say that would transport them from this craggy conversation of pitfalls and landmines to someplace safe, but she came up short.
“Somehow it always happens anyway,” Tristan said quietly.
Alexandra looked up at him from over her shoulder, but she couldn’t see his face. He was so much taller than she was and he didn’t look down at her.
“Maybe this isn’t right,” he continued. His voice was still soft, but it was eerily hollow. The arrogant, sarcastic vampire she knew was gone, replaced by this sad, subdued man who was doggedly picking up the dialogue that Lex had left broken and bleeding at his feet, carrying it onward into unknown territory. “This isn’t how it should be.”
“No,” she whispered, her stomach suddenly turning. She felt a cold sweat prickling over her skin. “Don’t do this. I need you.”
“Maybe. But do you even want me? Or do you just want someone? Am I really more than your—‘sexy bodyguard’?”
“Don’t leave me,” Alexandra begged. She turned to face him and clenched his jacket in her fists, but he still did not look at her.
“You can’t have it both ways, Lex,” he replied. “Just give me something to go on, a scrap of yourself. I’m not asking for a lot. Just show me that there’s even a point to us being together. I won’t hurt you. I won’t use you. Let me prove it to you.”
She shook her head slightly, biting her lip. He didn’t know what he was asking. “Give me some time,” she pleaded.
“I’ve given you three years.”
Glancing away, she searched for an escape. The train shrieked as it pulled into the Silver Spring station, but the doors of their car stayed closed. There was no way out of this.
Looking back at him, she opened her mouth, but there was no sound. The images of her past flashed before her eyes, each flicker more violent than the last, but she had no words to describe it. Her mind was blank.
“Can it wait?” she asked him in a humiliatingly small voice. “Until after we’re done with the witch?”
Tristan finally looked down at her. His eyes were bright, shining with unshed tears. Goddamn it, she had never seen him cry before. “Sure,” he replied simply, but his falsely light tone told her that she had just blown her last chance.
The doors of their metro car opened and he turned to walk out onto the subway platform without a backward glance. After a moment Lex followed him.
“You stay here,” he told her. “Find the entrance to the tunnel and keep watch. I’ll stake out the compound. Call my cell if you see anything. Just follow them, all right? Don’t do anything until I get here.”
She wasn’t listening. She felt muddled, trapped under the weight of a thousand unanswered questions. Were they broken up now? Had they ever been together in the first place? What would happen after they killed the witch? Could he really just walk away? Where would she go? What would she do?
“I’m sorry,” she suddenly cried. Tristan stopped walking. He kept his back to her, but his head was turned slightly to show her that he was listening. “I would tell you if— I wish I could, but— I can’t—”
He turned to her with a sad smile, as if he found her pitiful. “Lex,” he breathed. Then he reached for her and kissed her lips chastely.
The kiss tasted of grief and regret. She could feel Tristan’s heart breaking and she wanted so badly to pull away, but his fingers were tangled in her hair, holding her still.
When he finally released her, he wordlessly spun around and ran from her. Alexandra felt the small gust of wind left in his wake as he fled up the escalator like the sting of a slap.
It was over.
A sob escaped from her, a low wail that made her double over and crouch on the floor. The tears were like acid in her eyes, melting her skin as they trickled down her cheeks.
Damn it, she had no right to cry. In her mind, she saw Tristan’s glistening eyes and she loathed herself for causing him that pain.
God, she was poison. She was toxic. Lex wanted to vomit, but she only wept on her knees in the middle of the station and the humans moved around her as if she wasn’t even there.
For perhaps the first time in several decades, there was nowhere he had to be, no one he had to meet, nothing he had to do.
He was restless. Nauseous. Blood thirsty.
Humans passed him on the sidewalk and he purposely let his shoulder brush against theirs. Jostling them. Jostling himself. Searching for a point of reference, an anchor, a certainty. If he could just find some small piece of solid ground, he might be able to crawl his way back to himself.
It was no use. His walls had crumbled, his soul had turned to ash, and Aiden was drifting away. The only tangible thing he could feel was the silver cord that connected him to his witch.
He hated it. He hated her. But after five days of endless agony, he simply lacked the strength to fight it any longer. With a shudder, Aiden surrendered himself to the soulmate link, letting it draw him to his witch. He could almost see the silver cord shimmering as it lifted his feet, bent his knees, and swayed his arms as if he were a marionette—a hapless puppet of fate.
Never.
His lip curled as a chill passed through him. He’d had more than his fill of fate and destiny. He had never let such things rule him in the past and he would be damned if he was going to yield to them now. He would let the link lead him to his witch, but what happened when he found her would be his choice.
Picking up his pace, Aiden realized that he was smiling. Finally, after days of turmoil, he felt something like himself again.
Part 5
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