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“You’re no different, right?” I bite out, my voice cracking. “You’ve forced yourself on me before, remember? Taken from me—stolen from me. What makes you so different, huh?”

My eyes burn from the tears welling up. And within seconds, they spill, running down my cheeks.

“Do those memories keep you up at night?” he asks, his voice soft. “Do they torment you?”

He bares his teeth, his own ire flashing in his eyes. “Do you think about my touch as anything other than a fucking godsend?”

“I do now!” I shout, thrusting the gun at him. I suck in a sharp breath as a sob crawls up my throat.

He nods slowly, the anger dimming in his eyes. Deep down, I know better. I know he’s not angry with me.

He’s angry because he’s helpless.

Hopeless.

A goddamn lost cause.

Because I will never be the same. And he knows that.

But what he doesn’t know is what that means for him. For us.

The sob escapes, but the rage persists.

Slowly, he steps towards me like approaching a scared animal with vicious teeth. His eyes don’t stray from mine as he advances, and I’m so close to slipping back into that paralyzing hold he has on me. And then he’s right before me again, pressing his forehead into the barrel of the gun.

“Does this make you feel powerful?” he murmurs.

Another sob breaks free, but I don’t lower the weapon.

“Does this make you feel alive again?”

I scowl but can’t muster the courage to respond. I can’t articulate what it makes me feel—I just know that it makes me feel something.

“What you’ve forgotten is that the heart beating inside your chest isn’t fucking yours,” he snarls. “It’s mine. And if my heart has stopped working, then pull that trigger, little mouse. Kill the rest of me. I’m nothing if I’m not the reason you breathe.”

I break, and screw my eyes shut against the flood of tears, but it’s like putting a piece of paper over a bursting pipe.

My face contorts as pure agony consumes me.

“I don’t want to feel anymore,” I choke out, barely getting the words out before a gut-wrenching sob bursts past my lips.

“Let me—fuck Addie, just let me fucking hold you,” he bites, his voice breaking.

He tears the gun from my grip and tosses it on the bed, and then I’m being swooped up into his arms, weightless as he lifts me up against his solid chest.

I open my mouth, and I scream. I scream and scream until my voice cracks beneath the pressure. Until I fear my throat will shred from the force.

I want to crawl outside of my body so desperately. Just so I can escape this feeling.

No. What I want is that gun back in my hand so I can turn it on myself.

One last shout rips out of my throat, this one so full of pain that it brings Zade to his knees.

And finally, the pillar crumbles.

The raw sound tapers off, fading into a hoarse, staccato cry.

I suck in a deep breath, filling my lungs with oxygen that I don’t want, but I’m too lost in my grief to scream like I want to.