Аманда Хокинг - Fate

They stood a few feet from each other, glaring at one another and seething with unbridled rage. I scrambled to my feet, thinking that I had to do something, no matter how idiotic it might be, but before I could do anything, Ezra had swooped in between them. He stood on the rubble of the table, closer to Peter, but held out his palms to both of them.

“Stop!” Ezra boomed. “This isn’t going to settle anything!”

From somewhere down the hall, I heard Milo struggling to get free. Apparently, Mae had locked them both in a room, which was probably the safest bet. Especially since Jack was here, and there were threats against him, Milo was liable to get himself seriously injured, not to mention Jack or Peter.

“There’s only one way to settle this,” Peter replied calmly, his eyes fixated on Jack.

Jack’s face had contorted with so much hate, it was almost unrecognizable. His whole body was tensed so tightly, I could see all his veins sticking out against his muscles. His chest heaved with his breathing, and he lips were pulled back in a murderous snarl. He was poised to pounce, and it was a miracle that he hadn’t torn through Ezra to get to Peter.

“Peter.” Ezra turned his attention on him, which didn’t seem like the wisest decision to me, considering the expression on Jack’s face. Ezra took a step closer to Peter and rested his open palm on his chest. “You know what this kind of thing leads to. You don’t want this.”

“Tell that to him,” Peter nodded at Jack, who just growled in response.

“Jack!” I said, almost plaintively.

Peter winced, but Ezra tried to keep Peter’s focus on him, and it seemed to work. Jack, on the other hand, immediately softened at the sound of my voice, and when his eyes flitted over to me, he looked guilty. To me, that seemed pretty odd since I’d been the one who had just been kissing another guy, but Jack had never really been one for violence.

“Come on.” Ezra moved his hand onto Peter’s back and gestured outside. Carefully, Jack moved away from the broken window so that Ezra and Peter would be able to get by if they wanted to.

“Let’s take a minute to clear our heads before we tackle this.”

Jack stepped down, even allowing his fist to unclench, and that seemed to convince Peter that he was safe enough to take break. Carefully, Ezra led Peter through rubble, out into the night where the thick fog and mist had settled heavily onto the night. Jack watched them until they disappeared outside, but we could still hear the soft, careful tones of Ezra’s deep voice as he tried to reason with Peter.

Once they were gone, Jack hurried silently over to me. I opened my mouth to speak, but he shushed me. Grabbing my hand, he dragged me into Ezra’s den at the far end of the hall, and I could hear the bewildered calls from Milo coming from Mae and Ezra’s bedroom. Inside the den, Jack closed the door quietly behind him.

Again, I tried to ask him what was going on, but he pulled me into his arms and kissed me so ferociously, it erased everything. I remembered the way it felt when he bit me, his heart pounding with mine, and I could feel all the warmth and love radiating from him and surging through me. I wrapped my arms around, returning his kiss more fervently than I ever had before.

Underneath his kiss, there was a desperation that terrified me, but I tried to just concentrate on how amazing it felt to be in his arms again. Everything in my very recent history had been telling me that this would never happen again, but here it was, and I wanted to make this moment last forever.

“Alice…” Jack breathed, and then he forcefully pushed me away from.

It wasn’t that he really wanted to be away from me from so much that I was clinging to him so tightly he had to actually use strength to get me off of him. His placed his hands on my cheeks, his skin smoldering hot against mine, and his blue eyes were pleading with me.

“What?” My voice cracked because I knew that whatever Jack was about to tell me was breaking his heart.

“I’m so sorry about all of this.” He brushed the hair back from my face and smiled sweetly at me.

“Oh, Alice, don’t cry. Please don’t cry. Okay? We don’t have much time. Once Peter realizes we’re gone together…”

“We can just run!” I suggested helplessly and tried to keep the tears from spilling down my cheeks.

“No, Alice, he’ll never let you go. And neither can I.” His face filled with agonized apologies. “But I know that I might not come back from this…”

“No, Jack, this is stupid,” I insisted through the lump in my throat.

There was a pain so deep building inside me, I thought it might kill me. My body felt weak and achey, and I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to stand for much longer. It actually felt as if the ground had been ripped out from underneath me, and I was free falling into nothingness.

“Alice, you’re worth fighting for,” Jack smiled sadly. “You’re even worth dying for.”

“No!” I wailed, and I started trying to fight him, so I could break away from him and stop this suicide mission he had himself set on. “This is stupid! This is the stupidest thing you’ve ever said to me! You’re such a fucking idiot, Jack!”

I was hitting him as hard as I could, desperately trying to escape from the strength of his arms, but they were unrelenting. I even slapped him, but he barely even flinched. He just let me struggle wildly in his arms until I started to tire myself out, and then he wrapped his arms even more tightly around me and pressed me against him. I could feel the slow, heavy thud of his heart beat, and it made me sob.

His heart seemed have a set number of beats left, and that was more than I could bear.

“Alice, listen to me.” Jack had buried his face in my hair, and his words came out muffled but I understood them perfectly. “He’s not going to stop until he has you, not anymore. He’s finally realized he loves you and…. And I saw you kissing him-”

“No, Jack, I’m sorry!” I sobbed. “It’ll never happen again! I promise! I’ll never-”

“Alice, no! It’s not you. This isn’t to punish you, okay?” His fingers were knotted in my hair, and I could still feel the heavy beat of his heart against mine. “I just know I couldn’t live with that. And you can’t fight it. It’s in your blood.”

“Jack…” I tried to think of an argument to counter that, but there wasn’t one. He was right. I had been fighting the way I felt about Peter for almost as long as I’d known him, yet somehow we had ended up in an embrace when Jack walked in.

Jack moved so he was looking me in the face, but he kept his hands strong on my arms, in case I would decide to bolt and spoil his ridiculous plan. I knew what he was saying almost made sense.

He wanted to fight Peter for me, and there wasn’t any other way to reason with him. I could follow that logic right up until the point that one of them would die. That’s the only conclusion that Jack could come to. One of them had to die, and I knew there had to be something else.

“Alice, I just need to make sure you’re okay,” Jack said thickly.

“I’ll never be okay without you!” I cried, and he winced at that, but recovered quickly.

“That’s not what I meant. I have to go back out there, and if something happens-”

“We can run away! Don’t go back out there! Then you’ll always know I’m safe!” I interrupted him, looking up at him hopefully, but his mind was already made up.

“If something happens, I don’t think he’ll hurt you, but I need to know that you’ll be safe,” Jack continued, and I saw tears forming in his eyes, which only made me cry harder. “I need to know that no matter, you have a long happy life!”