Because You Exist(67)

I tried to charge at Alec again but the boys held me back.

“Why the hell would you tell me this? You can’t be dumb enough to think I’d sit back and let it happen?” I asked, sweat falling down my forehead from the struggle.

Alec took a long time standing up but when he did he walked up to me. “You going to hit me, Middleton?”

I grinned. “Kind of want to buddy.”

Alec raised an eyebrow. We both knew the minute I hit him the entire team would be on me. I pushed air out from my clenched teeth. “No. I’m not going to hit you.” Alec nodded and my captors let me go.

Alec took a step towards me and leaned in to whisper into my ear. “I’m doing you a favor, Middleton. Do you know how bad we can make her life if we don’t do this? How bad we can make yours. You still have seven months left in this place. That’s a long time. We do this and no one will mess with her again.”

He was right. Part of the Stevens treatment is no one acknowledged or talked to you ever again. It’s not like many people talked to Jo now, but she would be protected from assholes like Alec because they wouldn’t be allowed to talk to her.

It would be better, in the end, than what she went through now. Right? Better than the stares and whispers? People wouldn’t even talk behind her back anymore.

It would be like she wouldn’t exist.

It would be a way to keep her safe.

It was the promise I’d made. I would make her life better here. The people around me weren’t good. I wasn’t good. Changing them was impossible. I couldn’t even change myself. I knew it would be good for me too, Jo not existing. Not mucking up my life here.

It was a way to keep it all separate.

The shifting.

Jo and Jenna.

I did it for myself, but I did it for her too.

She’d never see it like that. I know. The moment I agreed would be the moment I erased the future where we were together. No matter how much I felt when I kissed her, and I did feel, with my whole damn soul, it would be better for everyone this way.

I looked at Alec and nodded. “What do you need me to do?”





Chapter 32





“I could get in a lot of trouble for showing up here. You know, considering I’m suspended the next five days for beating up your friend,” Jo said, sauntering up to the front of the school building where I had texted her to meet me.

The fact that she was meeting me at all let me know things maybe weren’t as bad as they seemed. But it didn’t really matter. I was about to make them worse.

For the greater good.

A quote from LOST I finally understood.

I cleared my throat. “You don’t have to sound so gleeful about it,” I replied.

Jo rolled her eyes, stopping in front of me. “I crave violence remember? It’s sort of my MO.”

We both fell silent.

“Your hands are pretty cut up,” I commented.

She frowned and stuck her hands inside her pockets. “I’m fine,” she said, looking away from me. It was only then, when her eyes weren’t trained on mine, that I could truly look at her. Suddenly, my body flashed hot. I remembered the passion of our kiss, the endless possibilities it seemed to suggest. How much I still, despite knowing it was all orchestrated, wanted her.

God. I wanted her.

I cleared my throat. I didn’t have a lot of time, and there were some last things I needed to say to her. Before this world was forever ripped from our hands. “I found out something today.”

“Oh yeah? What’s that?” she asked, looking anywhere but at me.

“You’re not my sister.” Why this still mattered I wasn’t sure.

She looked up at me startled. “What do you mean?”

“My uncle. He’s involved, Jo. With the whole damn thing. I’m pretty sure he’s working with the Dark Men.”

Jo bit on her bottom lip and nodded. “That makes sense. That weird moment when he knew my name without you telling him.”

“I confronted him and he told me I wasn’t your brother. And you know they can’t lie. But you do have a twin out there, Jo. You do have family.”

She didn’t need me.

Jo took a weighty breath. She looked about as relieved as I felt when I heard the news. “Um. Good. I mean. Can you imagine us brother and sister?” she asked, forcing a short laugh, her face turning red.

I shook my head. No. No, I couldn’t.

“Is that why you made me meet you in front of the school in the middle of the night?” she asked.

“I just thought you might want to know,” I said.

“Well, where’s the parade? I’m sure you’re thrilled,” she said, looking around her in jest.

“What? What do you mean?” I asked, worried maybe she could somehow read on my face what had happened between us. She was always good at picking up on things.