“For what? Coming back to me? Look what you came back to.” I search his eyes, bracing for judgment, but only find tears of grief escaping.
He wipes them away. “I came back foryou.”
“Sebastian…” I place my palm over his heart, staggered by the miracle in front of me. “How are you here?”
“It wasn’t easy. I would have gotten to you sooner if I could.”
“Why couldn’t you?” Our eyes hold as I thread my fingers through his dark hair.
“It wasn’t safe.” With a sigh, he leans into my touch, and his strands slip through my fingers like silk. “Getting to you was risky, but I had to see you.”
“What happened on that plane?”
“We were sabotaged.”
My heart drops, the implications icing my blood. “Someone tried to kill you.”
“They almost succeeded. If Tatum and I hadn’t bailed out at the last second…”
“Who did this?”
“That’s what we’re trying to figure out. Until we know for sure, it’s better that we stay dead. No one can know.”
A shudder racks me to the bone. So many times, I begged the universe to bring him back, despite knowing it was impossible. But now he’s here…
And we still can’t be together.
“I can’t go back without you.” I prepare myself for the objection I know is coming.
“You have to.”
“You can’t walk back into my life and leave me again.” More tears sting before I can brush them away.
“Novalee—”
“No!” My voice rises. “Take me with you.”
“I can’t.”
“Sebastian, please?—”
“Baby, Ican’t.”
“Why?” I think of the cliff, the memorial, the nights spent edging toward oblivion just to feel something other than his absence.
Hysteria has me in a death grip.
“I’m not going back without you!”
He slaps a palm over my mouth. “The guard will hear you.”
I force myself still, though my lungs burn with the effort. Slowly, he drops his hand, and I hold his gaze, searching for a crack in his resolve.
I find none.
“If you don’t go home with Oliver, we’ll spend the rest of our lives running. The Brotherhood won’t stop until they find us.Liamwon’t stop.”
“I don’t care.”