Endless Knight (The Arcana Chronicles #2)(27)

“Matthew told you that?”

Breezing past my question, he said, “Which just proves my point. You doan want anything to happen to me. Because you got it bad for me, peek?n.”

My face flushed, the truth laid bare.

“You got it even worse than you let on that night at Finn’s. You remember our little talk?”

“Of course I remember. I wasn’t chugging whiskey like a marooned sailor at the island oasis.” Jackson had talked about starting a life with me—on one condition. “You said I had to give up my quest to find my grandmother. When I told you I couldn’t, you broke up with me.”

“I didn’t break up with you, no. I just shot my mouth off because I was frustrated. Never met a fille so frustrating as you.”

How odd to be having this conversation when I was dressed in disappearing suds.

“I’ve been going over my options.” He raised a forefinger. “Ignore my every survival instinct and stick around some kids who are out to kill each other. Some real sick ones, too.” He raised a second finger. “Or leave and go after the Army of the Southeast, get my revenge.”

Jack and his adopted sister Clotile had been in that army. Only one of them had made it out alive.

“What was your decision?”

“Still here, ain’t I?”

“What swayed you? And why now? It isn’t like you’ve learned something new to change your mind, not since you informed me that I’m not right,” I said pointedly. Unless he had . . . No. That suspicion was too humiliating even to contemplate.

“Like I said, I figured some stuff out on my own.”

“Look, Jackson, say I did have feelings for you. That was before I realized you could never accept my nature. You saw me and freaked out.”

He narrowed his eyes. “I doan freak out, no. I think I’ve handled this pretty damn well. If you’d shown me that shit before, instead of springing it on me—”

“That shit saved my life.”

“From what I understand, it also led you to a madman. The Alchemist, non?”

Touché. “You treated me like a leper when you saw my abilities.”

He shot to his feet, pacing, and took another swig. “You expect me to get it right the first time every time!”

“Get what right?”

“My reactions, my words, everything. I ain’t goan to. I saw something I’ve never seen before, and I reacted.”

“With the sign of the cross? Really, Jack?”

“I’m a Catholic boy, me. And the sweet girl I knew had just slaughtered some kid and looked mighty pleased about it. It was like you were possessed by a demon or something!” He shook his head. “You expect me to be perfect.”

“It hurt, Jackson. Okay?” I pulled my knees to my chest, sloshing water.

As if helpless not to, he glanced down, seeming enthralled with my movements.

But he jerked his gaze up when I cried, “It broke my heart! I’d just gone through the most horrific event in my life. I needed you, but you were disgusted with me.” My eyes pricked with tears. “I needed you!”

He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Does it count for nothing that . . . that I’m trying to handle all this?”

“Maybe you shouldn’t have to try so hard. Come on, we have problems that extend past the game. We’re always fighting, always on a different page. I can count on one hand the number of times we’ve had a civil conversation. Most of the time I don’t know what’s going on in that head of yours.”

“What you want to know?” He sank down in the chair again, resting his elbows on his knees. “You want me to talk out my feelings? Goddamn it, how do I even start?”

I blinked in surprise. He wasn’t being a smart-ass. He was genuinely baffled how to do this. And why shouldn’t he be? Where would he have learned how to discuss his thoughts and emotions?

Not from his mother. She hadn’t even been able to feed Jackson as a boy, much less teach him to talk about things that bothered him. From his dad? The man had washed his hands of his son.

It was a wonder Jackson was as decent as he was. I remember how he’d admitted that he didn’t know how to behave with me. You can teach me how to court you. ’Cause I doan know my way around that.

He was trying. And how should I help him with this? Offer advice? Use your words, Jack.

“You spring this shit on me, then within days you expect me to get over the fact that my girlfriend ain’t exactly human!”

I didn’t know what bewildered me more—the girlfriend or the human part.

“Damn it, Evie, you been to my house, you saw how I lived. Can’t you understand why I hate surprises? Why I doan like it when people live secret lives?”

Maybe we were too different. “Too much has happened. And you’ve been hideous to me for days.”

“I was angry because I didn’t understand any of this. I doan like things I doan understand. And that morning in Requiem, just when I was trying to come to terms with this, I returned—right as you were about to cut that Irish kid’s throat.”

“He attacked us, after I tried to call a truce.”

“I get that people are gonna be hurt. I understand the program—hell, I wrote the program on people getting hurt, well before the Flash. But when I saw you liked it . . .”