“I know,” he agrees softly, running his hands up and down my arms, like he can ward off the chilled fear that’s settled in my bones. “But I need you to be that fearless female right now. This is your chance, Jetta. I need you to take it. I need you to go.”
We watch each other for a beat. Two. Three. It’s like I can still hear tonight’s music. Or maybe that’s just my own heart.
Th-thump, th-thump, th-thump.
“Jetta,” he pleads again, his tone urgent.
This is happening fast. Too fast. I can’t catch my breath. Both feet are unsteady. This is like a dream. Or a nightmare.
Cliff is my heart. My gravity. He keeps my feet planted on the ground and gives me a reason to live. How can he just ask me to leave him behind?
But Cliff just continues to look at me with this heartbreaking look on his face that tells me this is the most important thing in the entire world to him...and it’s because I love him that I can’t help but give him what he wants.
“Okay.” I hear the word fall from my lips like it clawed its way out and scraped me raw.
Relief flashes over his eyes, and he gently reaches up and cups my jaw with his hands. An adoring thumb brushes over my skin, devoted fingers holding the back of my head.
I open my mouth to curse him for making me do this when he knows the guilt is going to eat me alive, but before I can say anything, he presses his lips against mine. It’s soft and quick, nothing more than the barest of caresses before he pulls away.
“Go, Hellion,” he says, using his favorite nickname for me as he presses a few bills into the palm of my hand. “Don’t look back.”
I look numbly at the money—money I have no idea how he got—and I shake my head in disbelief that this is happening. I’m about to call it off. To go back on my agreement. To argue.
But then the door to the theater opens, and then someone calls out for us. “Heathcliff! Jetta! You out here?”
Shit.
Cliff’s eyes go wide. “Hurry!”
I want to tell him so much. I want to demand that he come with me. That we try to find another conjurer as we flee and get his collar off too. I want him to know how much he means to me—how much I love him, but it all gets stuck in my mouth, too much to say in too little time.
At my hesitation, Cliff shoves me back. “For once in your life, don’t argue,” he hisses, his tone suddenly angry and rushed. “Go, Jetta. Go now.”
Just like that, all the unsaid words die on my tongue. So I stand on my tiptoes and smash my lips against his in an angry, devastating kiss.
And then I turn and run.
4
Jetta
I run as fast as my legs will carry me.
But even though I’m heading toward a freedom I’ve wished for every day of my miserable life, each pounding step I take is harder than the one before it.
I run on autopilot. My legs sprint, my arms pump, my lungs work. All of my shifter skills come to the forefront, helping me dash around buildings and past cars as I race for the highway ahead.
My body is so honed for physical dexterity that my muscles move flawlessly, an instinctual drive pushing me to flee, and to flee fast. I don’t even break a sweat, despite how exhausted I am from tonight’s show.
I only look back once.
Cliff is stopped at the door of the theater, and it’s only because of my shifter eyesight that I can see him from this distance. He nods at me, even though I know he can’t see me anymore, just to help urge me on. Then he pulls the door open and goes inside, disappearing from view.
And I know, right then and there—I’m never going to see him again.
A sob wants to rush up my throat like acid, but my body’s priorities shove it away as my head whips forward again. He told me not to look back, but I did, and now I have a searing memory stuck in my mind forever of exactly what I’m leaving behind—my heart.
The feeling that’s growing in the pit of my stomach is like a rolling snowball, growing larger and larger with every controlled breath and slammed footstep. But I shove it down, burying it in the drifts, refusing to look at it.
The urgency to get away is pushing at me. Like a buzz under my skin, it’s drowning everything else out.
Go, go, further, further, faster, faster.
The pulse of the heartbeat music buzzes with it: Th-thump, th-thump, th-thump.
I pass the highway, and then I keep going, past the buildings and houses until I’m even further away, back with the untamed, prickly ground and shaggy trees.
I run.
I run until there’s nothing else in sight except for trees and hills, and only then do I slow to a walk, hands on my hips as my lungs take in great gulps of air. My body is tired, but I don’t stop, and I ignore every whining muscle.
I change trajectory, walking to keep the highway parallel to my path. I keep it within hearing distance of the cars driving past, but far enough away that no one can see me from the street. I walk along hills, the landscape a mixture of trees, bushes, and cacti, my mind detached as I go.
Every time Cliff’s face pops up in my head, I shove it away. Every time the thought of Kaazu coming for me rears up, I kick it back down. And when worry trickles in that Kaazu might find out what Cliff did—that he might punish him...no. I don’t let myself think about that either. Because if I do, if I allow myself to think about any of that, I’ll lose it. I’ll turn back around right now, promise be damned, and I’ll face Kaazu and drag Cliff out with me or die trying.
But then...Cliff’s sacrifice would’ve been for nothing. And I might be a selfish angry bitch, but I can’t disappoint him like that.
So I keep walking.
I keep hating myself.
I keep ignoring all my thoughts.
And I wrap myself in a shell of hated circumstances as I go on.
I walk without thinking until I make it to the edge of the city. There’s a convenience store ahead, a last-ditch stop before a lonely road surrounded by a bleak desert. I blink at the bright lights of the store with detached surprise to see that I’ve made it this far.
I’m not sure how much time has passed, but I do know that I need to grab some food and water at least. So I make my way toward it, noting that nothing else is around, and the hour is late, so there’s no other people nearby either.
The bell above the door jingles as I open it and head inside, the clerk immediately looking up from his phone where he’s sitting behind the counter.
He gives my clothes a pointed look, his eyes pausing on the collar as I head further into the shop. Still holding the wadded up bills in my palm with my bag slung over my shoulder, I take stock of what I have. Thankfully, I changed out of my costume, or the trek here would’ve already wrecked my feet.
I check my bag, seeing that Cliff stashed my leather jacket and another change of clothes for me, but that’s it.
I head through the store and grab the bare minimum, because I know this few hundred dollars I have won’t go very far. I grab the largest bottled water I can find, along with a few protein bars, and then head to the counter to pay.
“Can I use your phone to call a cab?”
The man looks extra put-out as he starts ringing up my stuff. “You don’t got a cell phone?”
“If I had a phone, I wouldn’t be asking to use yours,” I point out.