Page 71 of Carnival
Aria straightens up, eyes snapping to mine. She’s silent, observing my face, and her brows are narrowing a little. “He did?’’
I nod.
“And that caused you to get a panic attack?”
I shake my head, then pull out the phone, now with a cracked screen, and find the message. I toss the phone to her, which she catches with ease, her eyes reluctantly leaving mine to glance at the message. She reads it over once, then twice, then thrice, and gently puts the phone away.
“I promise, I didn’t know he had eyes on you,’’ she starts off. “Nor was I aware that he had a phone.’’
“I know,’’ I sigh. She’s not going to lie now, not when she already fessed up to the worst part of it all. “But it just means that he will kill Chase when he gets out. And I don’t know how to prevent it.’’
“Do you want the harsh truth?”
I nod.
“You can’t prevent it,’’ she says, pulling the band-aid off. “If James is hell-bent on killing him, he will kill him. Best you can do is try to take his attention elsewhere for a while, until the anger isn’t as strong, and then he might listen to you.’’
“It’s James we’re talking about,’’ I scoff, looking up at the ceiling. “If his mind is set on something, he’ll go through it, regardless of what I do or say. He has a lot of anger and vengeance in his veins. There’s nothing that can change it.’’
“See, so you know it, too.’’ She purses her lips for a moment, her eyes never leaving mine. “What do you want to happen here, Rose?”
I blink, taken aback. “What do you mean? I may not have romantic feelings toward Chase, but I definitely don’t want him dead.’’
She shakes her head. “That’s not what I meant.’’
“What is it, then?”
“You know how I always get that horrible gut feeling that never seems to be wrong?”
“Yeah? Go on,’’ I urge, sitting up, straightening my back.
“Well, it’s happening right now, and I know it somehow involves you. It’s been quiet for two years, Rose. Too quiet for my liking. All of those pathetic attempts to reach you were half-assed, at best, and distractions at worst. Something will happen soon; I can feel it. So, what do you want to happen, Rose? Do you want James out, or do you want him behind bars for good?”
My face goes slack for a few moments, and I struggle to process her words. She’s right, as usual. I’ve known deep down that it has, in fact, been too quiet, and that no organization as secretive, as thorough, and as detailed as the one James worked for would leave me alive if they were so keen on finding the USB drive and getting rid of me.
A shiver runs down my body, the fear slowly resurfacing at the thought. I don’t know who these people are, aside from Vivian, who is apparently my grandmother. Even so, she’s definitely not the type to bake cookies and tell me bedtime stories, given that she wanted nothing to do with me when I needed someone to take me in after my parents died.
“I don’t know,’’ I admit, biting the inside of my cheek until I feel blood coating my tongue. “If he gets out, it will be… unpredictable, at least. He’s refused to see me, Aria. Fortwo years, he’d never let me see him. He even told Casper to purposefully detour me and to tell me just how much he doesn’t want to see me. Why would that change now?”
“James is,’’ she pauses, looking for the right word, “different. None of us are saints, but his mind is as dark as night, Rose. I can’t explain it. I’ve learned how to read human emotions, how to understand body language, and how to gauge what people are thinking. When I saw James… nothing. Blank, dark, terrifying. It was like I was staring at a doll. He was in Hudson’s basement, and I caught a glimpse of him. It’s… insane how he doesn’t actually feel.’’
“What are you getting at?”
“You’re the object of his deepest, darkest obsessions. He’ll protect you, because if he loses you, he loses the game he started. People like him don’t lose. But I’m terrified of what will happen if he finds another person to focus his obsessions on. I’m scared what that will mean for you.’’
I take a deep, shuddering breath. “You took psychology classes, right? What do you think will happen?”
“I’m no professional, nor am I an expert, but I’ve met a handful of psychopaths in my lifetime, and James? He’s in a league of his own. Dark, dangerous, and, in a lot of ways, unpredictable. For now, he will protect you. But I can’t guarantee he won’t get bored.’’
“This is giving me a headache,’’ I sigh, rubbing my temples, my eyes fluttering closed. “He scares me, you know. All I’ve wanted in life was stability. He’s the polar opposite of what I need, but he is what I want, and it’s terrifying.’’
“I get it, you know?” She chuckles. “It’s similar to Cove and me. After Wyatt, I didn’t think I’d be able to trust another man again. Maybe not on James’ level, but Cove has his unpredictable tendencies that terrify me, but they also bring out parts of me I never knew existed. He makes me feel alive, Rose, and that’s precisely why his unpredictability is welcome from time to time.’’
Her words strike a chord inside me.
That’s exactly what I’ve been feeling with James. He makes me feel alive. He makes me feel things I don’t even know what to call; all I know is that he makes my heart beat faster, and he causes me to stop overthinking and try to live in the moment.
From the day we met to the day we parted, all James did was bring out parts of me that he knew were there all along. He gave me a version of myself that I’m happy with, albeit it being imperfect.
