I leap to my feet and step closer but Benson and Corbin swarm around me. I push them away and take Aiden in my arms. He says I calm him. He needs that now.
“Aiden? Love? I’m okay. Look at me, baby.” I repeat the words many times, trying not to say please. The sobs ease at the sound of my voice until they become just tremors. When he opens his eyes, they’re ravaged. He tries to get out of my hold but I tuck his head into my neck and cover him with my body. My smell, my voice—all of me. The tremors become twitches and slow down.
“Extraordinary!” Corbin’s voice breathes somewhere behind me.
I ignore science and hold Aiden tighter. From the corner of my eye, I see Corbin and Benson slip out.
I whisper to Aiden words that mean something to us alone. He starts talking too. At first, it’s only two words, over and over again. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Then the words turn venomous as he eviscerates himself in my ear.
“Elisa, go. Leave. Be happy. Even if illegal, you’ll lack for nothing. Just go. Go.”
“I’m not going anywhere. I love you.”
“You have to. Leave me because I can’t leave you. I can’t, Elisa. I can’t do it. End this. End me—”
I cover his mouth with my hand. “Don’t ever say that. You’re the best—the reason I’m me again.”
But the more I speak, the more I’m losing him. He jerks out of my hand.
“Elisa, what if Benson hadn’t been there? You’re hurt. You’ll see the bruises and you’ll hate me. I will hate me even more than I already do.”
“It was an accident, love.”
“It was almost your death.”
I can’t hear any more. I stand up and take his phone from the nightstand, scrolling for the name.
“Aiden Hale, you listen to me right now. If you insist on this self-sacrifice, I’ll call your mum. Then I’ll call Jazz and the others—I know they’re at the cabin.”
He looks at my finger on Stella’s name and closes his eyes. “How can I keep you after this? Why would you stay?”
I want to say “because I have hope” and “because I love you” but he won’t accept that. There’s only one thing he will accept right now.
“Because you owe me.”
His eyes fling open—specks of turquoise against midnight. It’s wrenching my insides to feed his guilt but it’s the only way.
“I’d do anything for you.”
“I only want one thing.” Well, that’s not technically true. “One thing you’ve already promised. You’ll start seeing Doctor Corbin every day. I don’t care if you have to stop working and we have to live in a hut or if we have to move to the Middle East for you to face this. You will be in his office for as many hours as it takes, and you will do what he says. So this doesn’t happen ever again.”
He nods before I finish. “I will. Now please, go. You’ll be safe. I’ll find the witnesses. I’ll build you your own lab. Just go.” His voice is gaining its natural hard cadence.
“No!”
Somehow—defying drugs and biology—he sits up straight. His movements are jerky but swift. Right leg off the bed, then left, then straighten spine. By the time Benson and Corbin storm into the room, Aiden stands ramrod straight as though he’s never fallen.
I, on the other hand, am frozen to the bed.
“Elisa.” He swallows like my name is a shard of glass. “Please go home!”
“This is my home.”
“I need you to leave.”
“I’m not going anywhere. You’ll have to drag me out by my hair.”
He flinches, scrunching his eyes shut as though the image blinded him. When he opens them, he’s not looking at me. He is looking at his iPhone still in my hands. I clutch it to my chest—there’s no way he will wrestle it out of my death grip.
His lips press together. “Benson,” his voice cuts across the room. “Your phone.”
“Aiden—” Corbin interjects but Aiden puts up his hand, eyes on Benson.
“Please call Javier Solis. Tell him everything I did to her and have him come pick her up. Now.”
“No!” I cry out. Javier will go mental. He will fight Aiden. And Aiden will let him win.
Benson’s eyes dart to me once, then back at Aiden. He squares his mammoth shoulders. “I cannot do that, sir,” he says very quietly.
For a millisecond, Aiden’s eyes widen as though he has never heard these words from Benson—or anyone else—before. Then his forehead locks and his jaw flexes.
“I beg your pardon?” he says between his teeth, his voice so cold that my teeth start chattering.
No one breathes. Except Corbin.
“Aiden, Elisa is right.” His voice is very calm. “She has a stake in this too.” He takes a step closer to Aiden—within his radius now. “Sending her away won’t separate you, and you know that,” he coaxes gently. “Remember what you said in your email to me?”