A Heart Bound In Shadows

Chapter 6

Willow

My lungs were on fire, and I could taste blood in the back of my throat by the time I reached our street. I stumbled through the darkness, running along the cracked sidewalk. Sharp pain shot through my left leg with every step, but the adrenaline drowned it out. I didn't look back. I was convinced that if I turned around, I would see his massive figure emerging from the shadows, along with those unnaturally green eyes.

When I finally reached the rotting wooden porch of our house, my hands were shaking so badly that I struggled to fit my key into the lock.

Just get inside. Just get inside.

The metal clicked softly. I slipped through the doorway, closed the door as quietly as possible, and slid the bolt into place.

The heavy, wet snoring coming from the living room nearly stopped my heart.

Victor was still sprawled across the couch in exactly the same position I'd left him. An empty bottle lay on the floor beside him.

I crept toward my bedroom on tiptoe, keeping close to the wall. Once inside, I locked the door behind me and slowly slid down to the floor. With my back pressed against the wood, I pulled my knees to my chest.

I sat there in the darkness, gasping for breath.

My palm throbbed from the cut, but something else was throbbing too.

My wrist.

I raised my hand in the darkness, staring at the place where Jace's fingers had wrapped around my skin.

I could still feel it.

The pressure. The heat. That inexplicable electric spark that had shot straight into my heart.

It was as though he'd branded me. As though a single touch had rewritten every defense mechanism my body possessed.

"Old blood... and bruises. Who did this to you?"

His words echoed in my ears, saturated with raw, suffocating anger.

I was terrified.

How did he know my name? How had he sensed my pain through my clothes, through my thick hoodie?

Jace was a predator, the leader of the city's most dangerous elite, and I was nobody.

An invisible girl.

Why had he noticed me?

My mind couldn't process everything that had happened that evening.

The fall. The bleeding. Brad's humiliation. And then Jace in the alley.

I closed my eyes and tried to shut it all out.

Instead, I focused on the little metal box hidden beneath the floorboards, filled with the dollars I'd managed to save, and on Ellie's blonde curls.

Just stay invisible, Willow.

Don't let anyone notice you.

The next morning, sunlight pierced through my bedroom like a merciless interrogator.

Every movement was agony.

When I pushed myself up from the thin, uncomfortable mattress, the bruise on my thigh nearly made my legs buckle.

In the bathroom, my reflection looked even worse than it had the night before. The purple bruise beneath my eye had darkened almost to black, and my split lip was swollen.

No matter how thickly I applied concealer, the evidence of the beating was impossible to hide.

I pulled on my baggiest navy-blue hoodie and brushed my hair forward until it almost completely covered the left side of my face.

I wrapped a thick bandage around my palm, using supplies I'd dug out from the back of the medicine cabinet.

Victor was still asleep.

I didn't make a sound as I left the house.

The walk to school felt like an eternity.

My stomach twisted into tight little knots at every corner. I scanned the streets nervously, terrified that a black sports car might suddenly appear.

By the time I stepped through the school's main entrance, the hallways were already crowded with students.

I lowered my head, pulled my hood deep over my face, and tried to make my way to my first class by keeping close to the wall and the rows of lockers.

The first thing I noticed was the silence around me.

When I passed Chloe, Brad, and their friends, I instinctively braced myself for someone to trip me, throw an insult, or burst into mocking laughter.

But nothing happened.

I lifted my gaze.

Brad stood pale and rigid, staring into his locker, while Chloe suddenly became extremely interested in her phone. She didn't say a single word.

They avoided looking at me.

There was no mockery in their expressions.

Only pure, unmistakable terror.

Jace.

The thought sent an icy shiver down my spine.

Whatever he'd done at the café yesterday had been enough to frighten the school's self-proclaimed royalty.

I quickened my pace and finally reached my own rusty locker at the very end of Hallway B, in its darkest corner.

I entered my combination and opened the door.

As I pulled out my books, I tried to calm my racing heart.

"You thought you could just run away and get away with it?"

The voice came from so close behind me, and it was so deep, that the metal locker door almost seemed to vibrate.

The book I was about to place on the shelf slipped from my fingers and hit the floor with a dull thud.

At that exact moment, the unmistakable scent of fresh pine and rain filled the air around me.

Slowly, trembling with fear, I turned around.

Jace stood barely an arm's length away.

His enormous frame blocked the light from the hallway.

He wore a black T-shirt and dark jeans, which only emphasized the dangerous, predatory aura surrounding him.

His green eyes weren't blazing today.

They were dark, deep, and unreadable.

But his gaze immediately locked onto my face.

Instinctively, I tried to step backward, only for my back to collide with the cold metal lockers.

Trapped.

"Please..." I whispered, my voice breaking.

Jace stepped closer.

His towering, dark figure almost completely shielded me from the rest of the hallway.

He raised his left arm and planted his hand against the locker beside my head.

He didn't touch me, but the heat radiating from his body, that impossibly warm, comforting yet terrifying presence, surrounded me completely.

"Last night," he began in a low, silky voice that sounded almost like a purr, "I asked you a question. And you ran away."

I didn't dare look into his eyes.

Instead, I nervously twisted the drawstring of my hoodie between the fingers of my bandaged hand.

"We have nothing to talk about. You don't know me. Leave me alone."

Jace let out a quiet snort.

There was absolutely no humor in the sound.

His gaze slowly dropped until it settled on my bandaged palm.

"Show me."

"W-what?" I blinked in confusion.

"Your hand. Show me your wound," he said.

This time, his voice wasn't asking.

It was commanding.

"It's bandaged. It's fine," I protested, hiding my hand behind my back.

Jace's jaw tightened.

His green eyes narrowed as he stared down at me.

"Willow. Don't push me. Show me your hand."

Hearing my name on his lips sent that strange flutter through my stomach again.

I didn't want to obey him.

But there was something about him, something in the dark, overwhelming power radiating from his very existence, that made further resistance feel impossible.

Slowly, trembling, I brought my hand out from behind my back and held it toward him.

Jace didn't take it.

Instead, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small white box.

When he opened it, I saw expensive, medical-grade bandages and antiseptic ointments inside.

"W-what is that?" I whispered in disbelief.

"I owe you for yesterday," Jace replied quietly.

He still didn't touch me, but he leaned closer.

His breath brushed against my ear.

"What that i***t did to you... things escalated partly because I was there."

My breath caught in my lungs.

The ruler of this city, the guy everyone was terrified of, was explaining himself to me?

To an invisible nobody?

"I don't need your pity," I blurted before my brain could stop my mouth.

My defenses immediately snapped into place.

"I don't need you to protect me. I... I can take care of myself."

Jace's expression hardened instantly.

His green eyes flared.

In one swift movement, he leaned forward and caught my wrist with his free hand, gripping it with extraordinary care to avoid the cut.

There it was again.

That spark.

That electric, scorching jolt that raced up my arm.

I sucked in a sharp, trembling breath, but he didn't let go.

His thumb settled directly over my pulse, feeling the frantic, wild pounding of my heart.

"You can take care of yourself?" he hissed, so quietly that only I could hear him.

His gaze drifted toward the hair concealing my bruise.

"If you can take care of yourself, Willow, then why are you so full of fear? Why does your heart race every time someone comes near you? Why is it that your scent..."

He stopped abruptly, as though he'd almost revealed too much.

Then he continued through clenched teeth.

"Why are you trying so hard to hide the fact that someone is hurting you?"

"No one is hurting me!" I whispered desperately. "Please, let me go..."

"You're lying," Jace said.

His words were merciless, but his touch around my wrist remained gentle, as though I were made of glass.

"And I'm going to find out who it is."

He stood so close that his chest almost brushed against mine.

His dark energy completely paralyzed me.

"I don't belong in your world, Jace," I whispered as tears began gathering in my eyes.

The walls I'd spent years building because of Victor were beginning to c***k simply because this boy was standing so close to me.

Jace looked straight into my soul with those emerald-green eyes.

The anger disappeared from his expression, replaced by something entirely different.

Something deeper.

A dark, unspoken promise.

"It's too late, Willow," he whispered, his voice rough and filled with possessive longing.

"You're already in it."

At the far end of the hallway, the bell rang sharply, signaling the beginning of class.

Neither of us flinched.

All I could see were those predatory emerald-green eyes.

And I knew.

The shadows that had hidden me from the world for so long were useless now.

Jace had found me.

And he had absolutely no intention of letting me go.