Page 23 of Illusory

Shaken, I gasped, freezing mid-step as I took in the sinister outlines that skewed his features and made it seem as though he were sneering at me. It was hostile and aggressive and completely unlike Trace. Everything in me was screaming for me to leave; to heed his warning and put space between us.

But my stubborn heart refused to let my feet move.

It’s still Trace, I told myself again, repeating the words like a wish I’d desperately wanted to make true.He’s still my soulmate.

Taking a courageous step toward the cell, I opened my mouth to say something—to greet him but was immediately cut off.

“You need to leave,” he snarled, his voice ripping through me like frozen shrapnel. “I don’t want you down here.”

Mind-numbing pain hit me from every direction. I tried not to react to his words, tried not to let them flay me from the inside out, but I couldn’t seem to pull off the feat. It felt like a fatal blow to the heart, and I was already reeling from its internal damage.

“Trace…please,” I begged, my words sounding small and uncomfortably desperate. “Can we just talk for a minute?”

His gaze never left mine as he leaned down over the speaker sitting on the end table beside him and then raised the volume all the way up before straightening again, the menacing scowl never leaving his face.

A wiser woman might have taken that as her cue to leave, but I wasn’t exactly known for being quick on the uptake anyway.

“I know you’re angry with me,” I shouted, refusing to be drowned out by the loud music. “And you probably hate me for what I did to you, and honestly, I don’t even blame you but—”

“Stop talking. Just stopfucking talking,” he snapped, cutting me right the hell off as he pushed both his hands through his hair, clutching at the roots as though my voice were causing him physical pain. “You have no fucking clue what I am, Jemma, or what I feel about you right now and I’m not in the position to explain it to you.”

His words were a serrated blade to the stomach, twisting and turning around in my abdomen in order to inflict the most amount of damage possible. In the entirety of my life, I had never known words could be that sharp or cut that deep.

Disgraced tears burned under my lids as the weight of what I’d done—what I had allowed to happen to him—hit me all at once. I’d ruined his life, and he hated me for it, wholly and completely, and something told me he wasn’t ever going to be able to forgive me for it.

Not this time.

“I never meant for any of this to happen to you, Trace.” Tears tumbled down my face like drops of summer rain. “I’msofucking sorry. If there had been another way…” I shook my head, letting the rest of the words fail me. It didn’t matter anymore. What was done was done and no amount of begging or pleading was going to undo it.

His next words came out so low and biting that my legs nearly gave out entirely. “Please just do us both a favor and leave me the fuck alone before I do something we both regret.” His dimples pressed in as he flexed his jaw, his nostrils flaring as if to control the adrenaline seeding the wrath under his skin.

Because that was precisely what it was. Pure, unbidden wrath. Hatred that rolled off his skin like an entity clawing out at my body, slashing at me with its serrated blade. I could see it in his eyes, in his posture. I could feel it in the low violent thrum of his clipped voice.

And still, I didn’t move, unsure of what to do. I couldn’t just walk away and leave it like this, could I? To run away like some scared little weakling. But what was the alternative? Force him to hear me out? Beg him to absolve me of my guilt and take me back? Fight for us?

Shit.

Maybe that was exactly what I was supposed to do…

“Please let me make this better, Trace. Let me—”

“GO!” His booming voice slammed into me like a freight train, knocking me back a couple of steps as the cold truth finally sunk all the way into my bones and then settled in the marrow like the frostbitten remains of what should’ve been, but would never again be.

Trace was done.

Wewere done.

The damage I’d done was irreparable,unforgivable, and he wanted nothing more to do with me. I could see it then, plain as day, and I had absolutely no one to blame for the gut-wrenching agony but myself.

Incapable of standing the burning humiliation for a second longer, I spun around on my heel and did the only thing I knew to do: Iran. From the basement. From the crushing pain that had suddenly put my heart in a chokehold.

And most of all, I ran from him.

* * *

“That was fast,” remarked Tessa as I charged up from the basement stairs and then slammed the door behind myself, nearly knocking it off its hinges.

My head was spinning, my heart hammering, my hands trembling with emotions I couldn’t contain. I didn’t know what to do with myself; what to say, where to turn. The walls were closing in on me again, drawing in closer and closer together as they threatened to steal the last drop of air from my lungs.

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