Thirty Nights (American Beauty #1)(108)

“Elisa,” he says before the lights have stopped flickering. His voice is quiet.

I turn to face him, to walk into his arms. But his eyes stop me. They’re not midnight anymore. They’re solid cobalt.

“Love, you have to turn him in.”

I see his lips move. And I hear his voice but the words are foreign. “What?”

He takes a step toward me. “You have to give him up.” He speaks very slowly.

There’s no mistaking the words this time. The air turns icy. Sharp like a January night.

“No!” The word whips out of my mouth, piercing and bare. “No! I can’t do that! I won’t!”

My staggering volume startles me but not him. He takes another step toward me, hands out as though to catch me. I step back.

“Elisa—”

“Why don’t you just give me an IED and tell me to tuck it under their pillow, Aiden? That should spare you whatever speech you prepared while I sat there on your lap, thinking you’re on my side!”

He flinches this time. When he speaks, his voice is very soft—counterpoint to mine. “I am on your side. I’ll be there even when you don’t want me to be. But this…this self-execution isn’t right. Think about your future, your dreams, your life, your health. If those die, your parents might as well die again. But this time, you’re behind the truck’s wheel, love.”

His words suffocate me. Because they’re the truth. And they change nothing.

“Did those reasons work for you, Aiden?”

He frowns in confusion.

“When you bartered your life for Marshall’s, did they work?”

His jaws clench. The tectonic plates shift instantly as his eyes darken to slate. “No, they didn’t.” His voice is guarded. Almost cold.

“Then why should they work for me?”

“Because Marshall didn’t break the law. He had a right to be back here.”

I gasp, taking another step back. “And Javier’s life somehow matters less because of that?”

“Not his life. Only his right to be here at your expense when you’ve played by the rules while he took shortcuts.”

“Shortcuts? He works harder than—” I say through my teeth.

“Stop!” His voice fires like a gunshot in the air. “I will not engage in a political debate with you. This is only about your future, your life. And I refuse to watch you go to prison for the mistakes of some Mexic—”

“Mexicans? That’s all they are to you?”

“What they are to me is irrelevant. All that matters is what they are to you. I know you love them but right now, they’re a threat.”

“They’re my family! They’re the people who saved the life of the woman you claim to love!”

I take a step forward to walk away but the change in his eyes locks my feet. A flash of fury strikes in the dark irises—over and over, like an electric current over the heart, failing to revive it. But the plates don’t shift. They’re still as though my words broke them.

“Claim to love?” His voice is low, guttural. His head jerks slightly to the side. “You want to know the full truth, Elisa? If I’d had you back here the day Marshall died, if I knew you were waiting for me to come home, I might not have bartered my life with his. I might have torn through those steel cables sooner. Just so I could see your face again. Even if I already remember every pore of your skin and every strand of your hair. Once I love, I love forever!” He stops talking but his voice reverberates in the library silence.

Once I love, I love forever.

I take a step toward him and reach to caress his scar but he turns his head away.

“Do you want to know the truth?” I say. My voice doesn’t echo; it’s a whisper of air as though it wants to float inside him. “I love you like that too. You’ve brought me to life. But even if there’d been no accident on that January night and we had met another way, I still would have moved here for you. We’re not that different, love.”

Something flits in his eyes—as though the electric charge finally obtained a heartbeat. “Then you can have me,” he says. His voice is no longer cold. It has a soft note, almost like defeat. “Turn him in and you can have me.”

I play his words in my head—once, twice—but they make no sense. “What?”

“Turn him in and I’m yours. Forever. However you want me. But not this way. Not with prison visits and phone calls while I sit there helpless watching you lose everything for someone who may end up being deported anyway. If I brought you to life, I want you to live it.” He takes a shuddering breath and swallows. “Please, Elisa.” His words are a hoarse whisper. As if this is all he has left to bargain—all he can give.

Tears blur my eyes at the searing agony in his eyes because I know I can’t ease it. Because I am causing it. I look down at his Oxfords. “I can’t,” I whisper. “I love you. I love you more than my own life. But I love the Solises too. I can’t betray them any more than I could have crashed into my parents’ Beetle. Or any more than I can leave you. I can’t choose between you.”

Sobs start and torrential tears gush to my chin. I’m the one who should be under marble and roses. I’m a plague to everyone who’s ever loved me.