Slade goes entirely still.
His eyes are trained on me as fierce as a hawk, and that intrusive power of his seems to tremble the air while it cloys forward to press against my skin. Like a feline’s rough tongue come to lick against invisible wounds.
“I didn’t run away until I was fifteen, and then...” My eyes drop down to my gloved hands. “Well. It doesn’t matter. Things didn’t go well for me.”
The first teardrop falls from my eye, the brined water of old hurts turning gilded the moment it slides down my cheek, though I dash it quickly away.
“I’m telling you this so that you can understand. When Midas came along, I was broken. I’d never known a kind touch by a man. I’d never known what love was or even real friendship. I didn’t even know myself yet. I may not have been innocent, but I was naive—unsure of who I was, who I could be.”
Vulnerability pierces me right in my chest, but I know I can’t stop now. Even though I’ve run out of breath, I have to keep on exhaling, keep on purging, or else I’m going to suffocate in my own poison.
I lift a shoulder. “I thought I loved him. I thought he loved me. For a long time, I convinced myself that was what love and friendship was, because I didn’t know any better.”
From across the room, I see Slade’s pale throat bob with a hard swallow, the roots of his power twisting around his neck. “And now?” he rumbles.
“Now, I know that I was a girl clinging to my own stagnancy, because I was terrified of being thrown back into the world that had abused me. I couldn’t face the truth that Midas was abusing me too, just in a different way.” My admission is a heavy burden lifting from my tongue, every word weighed down. “If Midas ever loved me at all, he buried it beneath his love for gold and the love for himself. Buried it so deep that he doesn’t even remember what he covered.”
Slade’s hands hang at his sides, and something ripples in his eyes. Something I can’t read. “What are you saying, Auren?”
Everything.
I’m saying everything.
Because there’s no time. Because I’m supposed to leave. Because he’s leaving too.
I take a deep, shaky breath. “All my life, I have been coveted or bought or possessed because of the gold that drips from my fingers and lusters my skin. I have been used and kept, and I learned to accept that life. I learned to accept that the best I deserved was Midas and that I shouldn’t ever hope for more because I knew just how much worse it could be.”
An angry look slashes across the shadows of Slade’s face, his mouth pressing together above his stubbled chin.
My wet lashes drag against my cheek with every blink. “But then you came along. And never, not once, has anyone looked at me the way you do.”
He goes tense, breath bated to hear what I have to say. There’s a long pause held between us, like hands cupping water, desperate not to let a single drop leak out. “And what way is that?”
“Like I’m a person instead of a trophy. Like you don’t just look at me and see gold,” I answer honestly. “That’s never happened before,” I admit with a sad smile. “You challenged me to be more than what I’ve been made into. You showed me how to see the world without my blindfold.”
He shifts on his feet, allowing a slash of light shining from the balcony doors to land across his black-clad chest. “Good.”
“But when you did that, you didn’t just open my eyes. You shifted my vision entirely, and now, all I keep seeing is you.”
My voice cracks with the truth, but I let it spread, let it split, just as I’ve been torn down the middle for weeks. It’s so hard, standing here in this raw honesty, bleeding out words. But for better or for worse, I’ve chosen a path in that forked road.
“I was going to just run away. To continue denying and doubting this...thing between us. I kept telling myself that you lied to me, that you’ll fool me like Midas did, that you can’t be trusted. But you’re under my skin and stuck in my head, and I’m furious with you for that.”
Slade rears back and his eyes flash. “Why?”
A shaky sigh slips from my lips. “I’m furious because every waking hour, every sleepless night, I’m trying to convince myself that running away is the best option, but I’m failing at it. I have these things inside of me now, this anger and this fear and this want, and I should walk away—I should. But it’s not enough to just get away from Midas anymore, to run and hide. Because you dug around and unraveled me, and now, I want more.”
Tears gleam across my cheeks as they fall. I don’t think Slade is breathing. There’s this look on his face that’s somehow a perfect mix of determination and devastation. His power crackles, and although I brace myself for a wave of sickness, it doesn’t come.
“Auren,” he rasps, just a slip of my name that somehow sounds like a promise rent from his soul.
“I keep blaming you for things so that I can push you away. But you’ve done nothing wrong. Not really. You’ve challenged me and pissed me off and lied, but it’s nothing I didn’t do right back. You’re not the villain in my story.”
“I am,” he says without remorse, his sharp jaw tight with tension. “But I’ll be the villain for you. Not to you.”
“I believe you,” I say immediately, because it’s true. I do believe him, not just in this, but in everything. I can only hope that doesn’t make me the fool.
The moment I say that, Slade takes a step forward. Just one, yet I feel the air between us condense and thicken. As if all these words I’m saying are filling up the divots we’ve created by digging in our heels.