Page 208 of Crucible
“Because the only way to stop Bane is to kill him. Since Khalil and Thorin can’t do that without killing Zeke, too, they either tranq him or trap him until Zeke or I wake up.”
“How long does that take?”
“A few hours. A few minutes. It depends. The moment Bane no longer feels like Zeke is in danger, he splits, and one of us takes over.”
Aurelia pauses scrubbing the blood from the walls to look at me. “So if Bane only comes when Zeke is in danger, why didn’t he stop Isaac from torturing him and hurting you?”
I shake my head to free myself from the clutches of the dark memories that try to take hold. “Because Bane wasn’t born until after Khalil and Thorin came for Ezekiel.” Sucking in a breath while an internal war rages on, I force myself to meet Aurelia’s gaze while I deliver the blow that might cause her to never look at me the same again. “He killed Tatum.”
“What?” Aurelia drops the sponge into the bucket, causing soapy water to splash onto the floor. It goes unnoticed as she walks over to me, her wet fingers curling into the bottom of my T-shirt. I can tell Bane freaks her out already and she hasn’t even met him yet. “Why would he do that?”
Not wanting to relive the events of that day, I give her as much of the truth as I can part with. The rest is Zeke’s to tell anyway. “Because there is no reasoning with him, Aurelia. If Bane wakes up, he’ll kill on sight. He won’t ask questions, and he won’t care who you are.” Reaching out, I stroke her soft cheek with my thumb. “He won’t care what you mean to me.”
Aurelia searches my gaze before she grabs my hand from her cheek and rests it over her chest where her heart beats. “You won’t let him hurt me,” she says with a finality that fills me with a deep sense of male gratification knowing that my girl trusts me to protect her.
But on its heels, carving a hole into my stomach and filling it with dread is the question that keeps me frozen.
What if I fail?
I obviously won’t be around if Bane wakes up. How the hell can I keep him from hurting her?
“I can’t control him,” I try to explain while my stomach churns. “No one can. He’s a kill switch in Zeke’s mind, and once you flip it, there is no taking it back.”
“Then I guess we better keep Zeke safe.” Removing my hand from her chest, she places her palm flat against mine for the contact she seems to need as much as I do. “Any more nose bleeds?”
“No.” It’s a lie. The nose bleeds are not only becoming more frequent but they’re also accompanied by migraines.
“Seth…don’t lie. I don’t like it.”
“Okay.”
Nodding, Aurelia flips my hand over, and her gaze zeroes in on a similar scar on the back of my hand. “Tell me how you got this,” she demands while softly tracing the raised skin with her finger.
“You’re full of questions today.”
“Seth.”
“The same way I got this one,” I say while pointing out the three-inch scar high on Zeke’s throat near his jaw. “I tried to kill Zeke. Bane stopped me.”
“Hestoppedyou?” she exclaims. “How?”
“He overpowered me, took control of Zeke’s left hand, and stabbed me in the right with the same knife I tried to use to cutZeke’s throat open. The knife went through the kitchen table, and I had to wait for Khalil to find me and free me.”
The shattered look in her eyes says that if Aurelia could, she’d weep for me. The worry that I might still want to off Zeke swims in her eyes, but she doesn’t allow herself to ask, and since she told me not to lie to her, I say nothing as well.
“I guess that explains the gouge in the kitchen table, but wait…the two of you were awake…at the same time? You can do that?”
Aurelia’s gaze is a cross between wonder and weirded out.
“Sure. It hurts a hell of a lot worse than being stabbed—quite literally like being split in two, so it’s not something we do for party tricks.”
“Why did you try to kill Zeke?”
“Because…” I have to swallow past the knot in my throat before I can say another word. “Being in his head feels like I never left Isaac’s table. He’s in pain all the time, except I can’t help him. There’s nothing I can do to bear it for him. Nothing except making sure he never has to feel anything ever again.”
“Seth…”
“It’s fine.”
