“But you heard what Clausen said. They’re going to hurt you to get me to talk!”
Daniel clenches his eyes shut.
“Daniel!”
“I’m not telling you anything else.”
“You have to! If you don’t—you have to give me something that will make them stop!”
He shakes his head. “They want a name, Rebecca. They want the senator. They want details of a plan that doesn’t exist. They want all the things I can’t give them. You know it as well as I do.”
“Did you really just save the pills up over time?”
“Yes.”
“You’re lying!”
His gaze hardens. “Do you trust me, Rebecca?”
I swallow. “How can I? All you ever do is lie to me as much as anyone else.”
He softens, and I hate that despite everything, I’d still do anything for him. Give my life if I had to. His eyes bleed a sadness that tells me he reads my loyalty and will refuse to accept it. “Every truth I’ve ever told you has come back to harm you, Rebecca. Every inch closer you get to me, the more you get hurt. Look at you. This is on me! There’s only one way for me to protect you.”
His words strike hard. Deep to the point where they punch all remaining protests from my lungs.
“I can’t just watch,” I whisper, and he looks away.
“I can take a lot.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of.” Our eyes meet again, and my body tingles with the mix of passion and terror that drives me mad. “Clausen was right. I do love you.”
His expression both warms and crushes me. “I’ve used a lot of people in my life in an attempt to survive. I’ve used you too, Rebecca. You were right not to trust me all the time. But.” He stops, and I hold my breath. “I do care about you. Maybe it’s love. I don’t know. I don’t even know if I love the same way as everyone else, but I know that I’ll die before I let them curse you with this fate. Please don’t make me fight you too.”
I close my eyes and shake my head. Beauty in violence, the theme of my existence, the reason I can never bring myself to turn away from horror. It’s here I found my purpose. My identity. My match. Daniel understands me on a level no one ever will, and now I’m about to lose my connection, my other half I never dreamed I’d find. We’re children of the shadows who somehow found light in each other. It can’t end this way.
“I’m not going to let them hurt you,” he says.
“I’m not afraid of being hurt. I’m afraid of losing you.”
He looks away, and I know he feels it too—the pull that nurtures and destroys us. “You’re going to be okay, I promise. You won’t know what you’re missing when you forget.”
I freeze. “What are you saying? What are you going to do?”
“Nothing. How are you feeling? Remember to get ice on those welts as soon as you get back to your room.”
Wait... “No! Don’t make me forget again! I don’t want to forget you!”
He closes his eyes as tears burn in mine. “Please don’t do this! Please!”
“Rebecca. It’s going to be okay.”
“No! I can’t forget again! Daniel, please! Please!”
He searches my face as if taking in everything he can. “Just know—”
But he’s cut off by the crash of the door. Clausen enters with his entourage, and we stare at the additional equipment wheeled into the room. “Go ahead,” Clausen says to an assistant who approaches Daniel with a syringe. The prisoner glares at them but barely flinches when the needle punctures his arm. I shudder at the casual way he accepts the injection. How many times have they been through this routine? But something’s wrong when his eyes shoot to Clausen in alarm.
“What is this?” His voice slurs. “What…”
