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But my stomach doesn’t loosen this time. Because if the token that should protect us from everyone inside that wall breaks, the man standing next to me won’t just become a monster.
He’ll become a monster with a rewind button.
The electricity between our palms flickers and dims, and everything in my body drops about thirty degrees.
Logan’s grip tightens, his eyes searching my face. He’s frustratingly good at reading me. No—he’s good at reading everyone. He’s had to be, to make sure no one figures out what he truly is.
“Your thoughts went dark,” he says, and it’s a fact, not a question.
“Yeah,” I admit, since there’s no point lying about it. “They did.”
“What’s going on in there?”
I should sugarcoat this. Find a diplomatic way to tell the most powerful Revenant I’ve ever met—granted, one of two—that his safety net just scared me more than anything in that glowing wolf fortress ever could.
But I’ve never been good at sugarcoating, and Logan would see through it, anyway.
“You told me that if anything goes wrong, you’ll go back and change it,” I say slowly, my fingers tightening around his. “That’s always made me feel safe, because your time travel has saved my life more times than I can count. But what happens if you’re not the one trying to save people anymore?”
Logan goes still. It’s not the normal kind of still, where he’s thinking and strategizing. It’s the inhuman kind, where his eyes stop blinking and every muscle in his body locks into place.
So, I keep going, since I’ve always hated silence.
“If the token breaks and you stop being you, you won’t just be dangerous,” I continue, each word burning as it passes through my throat. “You’ll be dangerous with the ability to rewrite reality. You could do anything to anyone, then go back and erase it, and no one would know the difference.”
His jaw tightens, his fingers rigid in mine, and for a moment, I think he’s going to scream, or snap, or do something entirely non-Logan.
“I know,” he says quietly, and it’s not the careful quiet where he’s choosing each word with surgical precision. It’s just quiet. “Do you think I haven’t thought about that?”
My chest tightens. “You have?”
“I’ve thought about it every day since August.” His free hand goes to the chain at his neck, pressing the rings hard against his chest. “Every day, I think about what I could do if I stopped caring. I think about what this power becomes without the guilt. What it becomes without you.”
Somehow, that’s worse than what scared me. I was picturing a hypothetical, and Logan’s been living inside the math for three months.
“I’m still choosing, Jade.” His grip tightens on mine, and the electricity between our palms flickers. “Every morning, I choose to keep the token on. I choose the guilt, the fear, and the way it feels when you look at me and see a threat instead of the man who loves you.”
“I’m not looking at you like—”
“You are,” he says, and it’s not an accusation. It’s a fact.
My electricity sparks in erratic bursts I can’t control.
“Okay,” I admit, since I’m no good at hiding my thoughts from him. “Maybe I am. But I just found out what you are this morning. Now I’m standing outside a wolf town about to lie to every person in it, so they don’t kill the Revenant I’m in love with. So yes. I’m scared, Logan. I know you love me, and I know with that token on you’re still you, but I can’t stop thinking about what will happen if it comes off, and I need you to let me be scared without turning it into proof that I’ve given up on you. Because I haven’t given up. I’m here. I’m also freaking out a little, which I can totally do at the same time, because I can’t focus on one thing at a time, anyway.”
His eyes hold mine, steady and hiding red-gold underneath.
“That’s fair,” he finally says, and just like that, I can breathe again. “But I need you to know that I’m scared, too. You’re imagining what I could do, but I know what I could do. And every day, I choose not to. Every day, I choose you.”
All the air exits my lungs at once as the weight of his words crashes down.
“Is that what’s keeping you tethered?” I ask. “Me?”
His thumb presses harder against the rings at his neck, and the black fire around us flickers before steadying again.
“Yes,” he says, as if it’s the simplest thing in the world. “But it’s not just that you keep me tethered. It’s that some mornings I wake up and I don’t want to fight it. Not because the token’s failing, but because it would be easier. I wouldn’t have regret, or fear, or...” His gaze drops to our joined hands, and he pauses for a few seconds before continuing. “Or guilt from the look on your face when you remember what I am.”
My electricity dies in an instant, and for the first time in my life, I have nothing. No dark joke. No spiral. No self-aware commentary about how badly I’m handling this.
