The Girl Who Dared to Endure (The Girl Who Dared #6)

All in a single day.

To say I wanted to wrap Leo around me like a blanket and fall asleep feeling safe was an understatement. Especially now that I knew this could be our last night together. It was selfish and wrong, but I couldn’t stop myself.

“Leo, will you come to—”

“Stop,” he interrupted, and I froze, cocking my head at him. He stared back at me for a second, a deep look of concentration in his eyes. Uncertainty rippled through me, and I took a step closer.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

He shook his head, sandy-brown hair waving back and forth, and swallowed. “Wait,” he said, and his eyes begged me to heed him.

I worked my mouth back and forth, still uneasy, but nodded and wrapped my arms around myself. Leo closed his eyes for a moment and took a couple of deep, even breaths. His facial muscles changed microscopically, and if I didn’t know any better, I would say he was having a net call with someone. He had the ability; I just couldn’t imagine whom he would be netting. Maybe Dinah, to apprise her of the situation with Alex? If so, it would be an odd time to do so. Unless he was just trying to be helpful and take something off my plate.

But no, he would let me handle that. I frowned and continued to keep quiet. He would tell me when he was done. After what felt like an eternity, his eyes opened, and he gave me a furtive look.

“I’m sorry,” he said with a sigh. “I… I could guess where this was heading, and there’s something you need to be aware of. A few things, actually.”

There was a quality to his voice that I didn’t like, and all my instincts were telling me that whatever he was about to tell me wasn’t good. Maybe I was overreacting, given the day I’d just had, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. Had he been damaged when Baldy was shot? Was something wrong with Grey? He’d said we’d have to talk about him later. Maybe he was going to fill me in on what happened.

“Okay,” I said, drawing it out. “You going to tell me what those are?”

He gave me a look that was filled with pain. “Maddox and Quess had to tell Grey what was going on. It was the only way he would accept the net—and me—without a fight.”

For several long seconds, I couldn’t understand what he was saying. Then I did, and I swallowed, hard, fighting against the nausea that was forming in my stomach. “They told him the truth.”

“Yes. Well, parts of it. He didn’t understand a lot, so they tried to summarize as much as possible.” He paused and then shuffled his feet. “He asked them about you—whether you knew each other—and Quess told him that you did. He didn’t go into detail, but basically… Grey demanded to be awake while I was working on him, and they agreed. They told me about the deal, and—”

“They didn’t get your consent,” I said, thinking that it wasn’t fair of them to make a deal on his behalf without his permission. He had been stuck inside the net at the time, unable to communicate anything, and they had just blithely agreed to Leo sharing his consciousness and thoughts like that. Then my eyes widened, and I cupped my hands over my mouth, horrified at what I had said. Not for Leo, but because I knew Grey was watching us right now. Which meant he had just seen me basically denying his right to know what was happening to him while he wasn’t in control. All because I didn’t want Grey knowing about what was happening between Leo and me.

What an awful, selfish person I was.

Leo gave me a broken smile. “It’s okay,” he said soothingly. “That’s why I asked you to wait, earlier. I was talking with Grey, asking him to give us some privacy so I could tell you what was going on.” He pierced my soul with a single look. “I wanted to give you a moment to adjust to the news.”

“I see.” I closed my eyes, trying to find some semblance of peace with what he was telling me, and then flat-out refuted it. If this was the last moment that Leo and I could talk, unmonitored by Grey, then I wanted to tell him the truth about what I felt for him. How I felt for him.

“Leo,” I started, using his name as a starting point for my chaotic emotions. “I—”

“It’s probably for the best,” he interrupted. He moved to say more, but I wasn’t going to let him get the final say in this.

“No,” I said flatly. “It’s not. Leo, I have things I want to say to you. Need to say. And you should hear them.”

“To what end?” he asked bitterly. “Grey will be back in your life soon, and—”

“I don’t care,” I told him. And I didn’t. Because now that I was this close to losing him, I realized that I couldn’t bear it. “We can figure something out, find you a new body. Someone who is in the Medica, maybe, braindead. You wouldn’t have to restore them, you could just—”

I was babbling, and it was only the weight of Leo’s hands falling on my shoulders that managed to bring me to a stop. “I couldn’t do that, Liana. You know I couldn’t do that.”

Tears started to form in my eyes at the sadness in his voice, but I blinked them back, refusing to give it up. “Yes, you can,” I insisted, reaching up to cup his face. “If not one of them, then a legacy, one who didn’t attack me. I don’t know what happened before, but I’m certain you could figure out how to keep it from happening again. And, I mean, we’d just have to kill them anyway, so it’s not like you’d be doing anything bad!”

But Leo’s sadness grew even more obvious, his reluctance and refusal showing on the planes of his face.

“Please!” I begged, wanting to shake him. “I’m sorry I denied my feelings for you all this time. I’m sorry I was so confused. Just… please don’t leave me!”

He closed his eyes. “You don’t understand,” he breathed. “I can’t give you what you want, Liana.” His eyes snapped open, and he abruptly moved away, taking a few steps to carve some space between us. “I think you were right all along. Grey was influencing the way I felt about you. My feelings for you were never really my own.”

I could’ve heard a pin drop with how silent and still I was at his revelation. For a long moment, I didn’t feel anything. I just stared at him like an idiot. Then it hit, and I met it with a wall of flat-out denial. I couldn’t accept that as the truth, not after all the beautiful things he’d said to me. All of the wonderful ways he’d made me feel, in spite of my own grief.

“No,” I said, taking a step toward him. “You’re confused. Baldy’s crazy thoughts freaked you out, and we had a really long day. After we get some sleep we’ll—”

“He held a gun on you, Liana. He was going to shoot you, and I couldn’t do anything to stop him. I should’ve been enough. How I felt about you should’ve been enough to stop him, but it wasn’t. I was trapped in his mind, unable to stop him as he threatened you! As he shot Eric and threatened our friends! And there was nothing I could do to stop him! All I could feel was his hatred and fear. What I thought I had clearly wasn’t strong enough to fight what he felt. Ergo, it wasn’t mine.”

“You’re not being fair to yourself,” I said to him. “It’s not your fault you lost control, and of course you felt what he was feeling. That’s what the net does! I’m not sure why he was able to resist you, but that’s not your doing! And it certainly doesn’t mean your feelings toward me aren’t real! Dammit, Leo, you spent all that time convincing me they were! Why are you doing this?”