Page 4 of The Evil Twin
I sat down beside him and took his hand.
“You know I love you, right?” I said.
He squeezed my hand. “Of course. And I, you.”
I smiled. It was such a Tennyson way to say it. He wasn’t going to make this easy.
“I understand why you withheld that information from me. You didn’t want to burden me with everything else going on. You thought I’d feel responsible, because he’s my father.”
I kept my eyes downcast, focused on our joined hands. If I had to look at him, I wasn’t sure I could say what I needed to say.
“Lucy, I –”
I shook my head. “Let me say this before I change my mind.” I took a deep breath. “I know we’re in this for the long haul. At least, I know I am.”
I felt him nod beside me.
“So that’s why I think we should cool it for a little while. At least, until all this craziness settles down.”
He made a noise in his throat, almost a cough but not quite. “You want to break up?”
“No,” I said, gripping his hand more tightly. “No, that’s the last thing I want. But you can’t deny that our priorities are all messed up. If I were some rando with an evil dad, you’d have told me about the attacks in a heartbeat, in case I could help or had info. And I can’t count the times I’ve put my feelings for you ahead of what’s best for everyone.”
“Those feelings won’t stop just because we’re not together,” he said.
“I know,” I said. “But we both might think more clearly if we’re not so…” I made a vague gesture between the two of us. “You know. Distracted.”
“You’re doing this to punish me,” he said.
I scoffed. “If anything, I’m punishing myself.” I leaned into him, just a little. “Don’t be mad.”
“How can I not?” he said, but he didn’t sound mad. He sounded tired.
That made my heart ache even more, but it still felt like the right thing to do.
“We need to think of each other as if we were any other packmate. As if we were… Nikolai.”
Tennyson huffed out a little laugh. “I think it’s safe to say I will never think of Nikolai in the same way that I think of you.”
I would have made some joke about his crazed attraction for Nikolai, but that seemed like something a girlfriend would do, not an impartial packmate. Instead, I straightened my shoulders and let go of his hand, telling myself it wasn’t forever.
“Tell me about these attacks,” I said, doing my best to keep the heartache from my voice.
Tennyson nodded and started to lay out the details. It was bad. Absolutely merciless.
“I need to figure out the lodestone,” I said, once he’d finished. “I need Althea.”
“There’s someone else who might know,” he said.
“Vucari? He seemed to think I had to figure it out for myself.”
“Not Vucari. You. Other-you.”
I thought it over. I didn’t want to deal with her, but if I were this new logic-based Lucy, I couldn’t let that factor in.
“I guess you wouldn’t bother traveling to a whole different world after something you couldn’t use.”
“True,” I said, then sighed.
