Atticus lurched back, my nails scratching over his cotton shirt as my body failed to keep up with my head.

"To befriend her was one thing, but this?" Olivia hissed.

Her voice cut through the fog of lust in my head. As it did, I noticed Aslo sheepishly standing in the doorway. His shoulders filled the space, but never had a man so big looked so small.

"I tried to stop her," he murmured to Atticus, who had disentangled himself from my grasp and instead stood between Olivia and I at the edge of his crumpled bed.

"Liv, let me explain," he started, but her eyes flashed with a venomous green.

Goosebumps broke out across my skin, and my limbs tingled with adrenaline as my survival instinct kicked in. Slowly, I inched towards Atticus until his hand gently rested against my knee, a warning sign to stay seated.

"Explain?" Olivia spat sarcastically. "Playing Scrabble were you? Debating the latest EU summit decision?"

Her words sliced through the air; each one more spiteful than the last. As she seethed, I reached for my discarded top and pulled it in place. I figured my black lace bra was probably like flashing a red rag to a bull, or in Olivia's case, a homicidal bull with the speed and strength to tear me in two.

A hardness flashed across her vitriolic gaze as she watched me redress.

"Last I heard your orders were to find her, Atticus, not fall for her."

My chest tightened as I heard what she said. Like cool sea fret creeping from the shore, I could feel the betrayal sliding over my skin, making my blood run cold.

Aslo's hand grabbed her arm, like he could somehow make her suck the words back into her mouth. "Starling, that's over the line."

She shrugged out of his grasp effortlessly, an impressive feat given how dainty she looked.

"I'm over the line?" she exclaimed. "He has no intention of wiping her memory, Aslo. You and I both know that. That's a breach of secrecy without even considering everything else."

Their voices seemed to drift into the distance as Olivia's words ran through my head.

Your orders were to find her....

I looked at Atticus beside me. He should have been defending himself against Olivia's onslaught, but instead he was just watching me, his beautiful blue eyes wide and fearful, like a child caught out in a lie. A sick, painful lie.

"You were ordered to find me?" I asked in a voice so small no human would have heard it, but he did.

He dropped to my side, joining me on the bed that was still warm from our bodies.

Somehow that thought made it worse.

I could feel the heat of his touch against my thigh, but it didn't elicit the same thrill it had minutes ago.

"Only you would focus on that part of what she said," he said with a humour that was just as fake as the smile on his face. Just as I could see the fear in his eyes, I could hear the panic in his voice.

I threw his hand from my leg as I replied, "It kind of makes the rest of it irrelevant, don't you think?" My voice was acidic. I could almost feel it burn my throat. Or maybe it was just the bile bubbling at his betrayal.

"Anna, please, I can explain."

"I'm sure you can," I sneered. "But how am I supposed to believe a word you say."

The tingle of adrenaline ignited into a spark as I tore myself from the bed. I didn't think about the other Watchers in the room, or how they might react. I didn't care. In that moment, nothing could be worse than having Atticus so close.

I grabbed my jumper from the floor and ran for the bedroom door, calculating the route to my coat and shoes.

I felt the air churn as Atticus moved to block my exit, but I refused to look at him. I couldn't. Instead, I kept my gaze on the floor, staring at my jean glad legs and chipped toenail polish.

Olivia's smug voice cut through the buzz of fury in my ears. "Let her go Atticus. You know you should."

"Stay out of this Olivia," Atticus growled in voice that was lower and rougher than I'd heard from him.

In the beat of silence that should have been filled with her reply, I bolted from the room, grabbing at my coat and shoes before thundering out of the door. I should have been annoyed that I couldn't just go back to my flat, but I'd always known I could leave that place and never look back. If I had to.

This moment fit that description perfectly. I had to get out. I had to leave, to escape what I'd just heard, what I'd learnt, the memories... no lies that place held. My flat or his, it didn't matter, from the outside they looked like one place and in my mind now they both held the same resentment within their walls.

Without thought, my feet stomped against the pavement. At first, they were a steady staccato of thuds as leather met concrete, but soon the speed of my footsteps played a frantic drumroll as I ran as fast as I could.

By the time I felt the inklings of conscious thought, I was already far from anywhere I considered home. Instead, I stood at the edge of a wide field. Not the kind with sweeping barley that danced in the wind, but the clipped, green, expanse associated with football on a Sunday morning or a stolen wander with man's canine friend.

"Anna, stop." Atticus' voice, like a cattle prod, shocked me back to reality.

"Piss off Atticus," I hissed as I stomped onto the mud, feeling the way the earth sunk beneath my weight. Part of me wondered if I would just continue to sink until I was gasping for breath, the strands of grass tickling my lips as I fought against the inevitable pull. Never had I felt so heavy, so weighed down with knowledge I had no wish to have.

"Please listen to me," Atticus pleaded as his long legs kept pace with my strides.

I knew if I looked to my left, I'd see him walking alongside me and that thought was enough to keep my gaze fixed on the ground. I knew if I looked at him, I'd crumble. Either that or I'd say something so hateful I could never come back from it. At this point in time, I wasn't sure which was worse, so instead I settled for stating the obvious.

"You lied," I snapped. "I asked you outright what your orders were, and you lied. You said you were just told to come here. Nothing else."

"I was told to come here." I could hear the desperation in his voice, and for a split second I considered meeting his gaze, but something stopped me. Instead, as he continued, I kept my eyes fixed on the way the cropped grass shimmied in the stiff breeze.

"I didn't want to tell you why because the more I got to know you, the more I knew this was how you'd react."

The calculative nature of his confession triggered a response.

"What else is in that book of yours?" I said sharply. "Did they tell you how to get close to me? How to make me trust you? 'Tell her some bullshit spiel about how much you care, and she'll be putty in your hands'," I spat.

"I think we both know you have never been, and will never be, putty in my hands." I could hear the smirk in his voice.

Anger flared in response.

"What kind of person makes a joke at a time like this?" I didn't give him a chance to respond. "Oh right, of course. You're not a person!"

I could feel my body language become more exaggerated as I spoke each word. "What kind of self-destructive idiot am I, that I honestly thought I could trust some supernatural soldier who's been blindly following orders for the wrong side of forever? And that doesn't even start to touch on the fact that even if you did stop and think about what you've spent all this time doing, your moral compass is so fucked you'd have no idea if you've been wrong or not!"

My mouth was moving faster than my mind, I knew that, but at the same time I needed that unfiltered stream of speech. Because if I stopped and thought about what I was saying, I might never get the words out.

The wind whipped my hair, lashing it against my skin as it howled.

"Anna."

My name nearly got swallowed in the throes of the storm brewing above us, but as if my body had a filter for all things but Atticus, I heard those two syllables call to me. Never had I heard them laced with such pain or regret. Never had that sound cut me so deeply.

Raindrops fell fat and heavy on my cheek, masking the tears.

"I let you in," I whispered through gritted teeth, not through anger but because I knew if I didn't control my words now, he'd hear the lump at the back of my throat. "Just this once, I let myself believe I could have a small slice of what everyone else has. Just once. But it's all just been a lie."

Rain pattered against my coat. All to clearly, I could guess what he would look like now: dark, tousled hair, wild and wet, with droplets falling to land on creamy, taut skin. Just as he had the day he caught me in the bar, or the night he found me in his bedroom.

It hurt too much to reconcile that man with the being standing beside me now.

My reverie didn't last long before he punctured it with the sharp sound of disbelief.

"You let me in?" he exclaimed. "Now who's the liar?"

My gaze snapped towards him. "Excuse me?"

My incredulity dampened the pang of wanting as I saw him standing in a sodden t-shirt and low-slung jeans.

Wild blue eyes searched mine. "When we first met, my reasons for talking to you might not have been entirely honest, but that is the only time I lied," he said as he inched toward me. "I told you who I am, what I was, what we could do, why we did what we did."

His hand passed through his hair in agitation, leaving the strands haphazardly brushed to the side.

"I showed you who I was when I was still figuring it out myself," he pressed as his gaze held mine. "I have always told you the truth about who I was, even though it goes against everything I've ever known. Against the very laws of my creation."

His hands reached for mine, but I snatched them away as I retreated.

"You only did those things for your own personal agenda. Because some floating head told you what to do!"

His brow furrowed as his gaze watched me intently.

"And what about you? What about your reasons for talking to me?"

I scoffed. "I had no choice. You wouldn't fucking leave me alone!"

Thunder rumbled as the wind whipped the rain into a frenzy, rhythmically thrashing against my skin like the blood rushing through my veins.

"You had every choice," he shouted above the roar of Mother Nature. "I saw you that day when you ripped into that boy for showing an interest. You shut him down without a second glance. If you didn't want anything to do with me, you could have done exactly the same thing!"

His expression darkened, as it had that night in the bar when he'd walked out on me.

"I..." I started, but his words cut me down.

"You didn't because, whether you can admit it to yourself or not, you had your own agenda. The difference is you had a choice. I didn't."

I seethed as I listened to him try and reason with what he'd done.

"Cut the bullshit! I'm not the one who has to explain," I snapped.

"I was a mystery and you had to figure me out. You wouldn't have given me a second of your time if that voice in your head hadn't wanted to know what I was," he said; his jaw clenched and his eyes sparking.

"Don't you dare turn this onto me," I hissed as I closed the gap between us. The delectable scent of him swirled around me as the wind danced around the field.

"I'm not," he said as his expression softened. "But if you think our reasons for seeking each other out are different then you're wrong."

I felt my anger still as we stood together, his eyes watching mine as the wind circled us, pulling us together.

"The difference is I'm not afraid of how I feel about you," he murmured as his hand slowly skated along my arm. "I should be. I should be terrified. But it doesn't matter that it's all new, or it's risking everything, because when I look at you, I know how I feel." The warmth of his palm against my cheek sent shivers down my spine. "I might not understand it, but I know it's real."

Real... how can it be real if it's built on lies. The thought slashed at any sentimentality and with it I wrenched out of his grasp.

As soon as his skin left mine, I saw the softness in his eyes turn to shadow.

"That's the difference between you and me," he said calmly, despite the way his hands flexed at his sides. "I stopped seeing you as an order the day you denied me those Skittles, but you've never seen me as anything more than a distraction." His blue eyes watched me, a storm brewing in their depths. "You say you let me in, but I don't think you've even come close."

His accusation sliced through me.

I sucked in a breath, steeling myself against the ache in my chest.

He was right. I knew he was.

I hated that.

And more than that, I hated that my lies hadn't been good enough to fool him, that I wasn't as good an actress as I thought I was.

I hated that he'd thrown it in my face, as if my weakness some how gave him an excuse.

I hated that I had a reason to lie in the first place. If I hadn't made the mistakes in my past, then I would never have had those voices run through my head, and I would never had anything to hide from those around me. If I hadn't fallen down that twisted rabbit hole, then I would be a normal girl. One that, when a guy touched her, wasn't thinking about the monster who ruined her before.

I hated that he reminded me of that past I tried everyday to forget.

And I hated that he had called out the one rule I had lived by for the past four years, because if not for him, I'm sure I could have gone another forty without ever having to question whether I was right to block the world out.

But more than anything, I hated that I didn't hate him. Not half as much as I wanted to.

Despite everything I'd learnt, there was still part of me that wanted to push it all aside, lock it away, and just go back to the moments where he was kissing me and nothing else mattered. No supernatural forces, no complications, no hidden schemes and secrets. Just me and Atticus and that feeling between us: the one that felt like it could burn away all my darkness until all I am is happiness and hope and light.

But, in this moment, with the wind howling and the rain biting at my skin, I couldn't decipher the intricacies of my emotions. Instead, all I felt was hate, and all I saw was Atticus.

Lightning crashed above us as my focus locked onto him.

"Well look at Book Boy. A few months of pretending to be human, and you think you have it all figured out." Like a finely honed knife slicing through flesh, my words slid softly onto the breeze. "The truth is you can pretend as much as you want, but you will never be anything other than the soulless drone you've always been." Hatred fuelled the venom in my voice. "How could I ever see you as anything but the body snatching parasite you are?" I wanted to stop, but the darkness in me spurred me on. "And even if I forgot that fact for one second, and let myself cling onto the glimmer of humanity you sometimes have, we have no future," I hissed viciously. "So yeah, you're just a distraction, and like those human lives you've snuffed out, I'll move on, and you'll be nothing more than a bad fucking dream."

Thunder rolled above us, chasing the flash of lightning.

With the fire of my fury spent, my gaze flashed to the creature before me.

His mouth, so often quirked with a playful, lopsided smile, or tantalisingly tempting, now dropped open.

His eyes, once lit with the brilliant blue of excitement and desire, now seemed clouded with sorrow and disbelief.

As I looked at him now, he wasn't the supernatural being I'd known: the epitome of strength and self-assurance. He was just a shadow of that self, with his broad shoulders sunken and his 6ft 2 stature crumpled under some hidden weight.

Despite everything, I didn't want to see him like this, and I didn't want to stay to feel my words curdle in our silence, so I turned to leave.

"I love you, Anna."

My steps faltered as his whispered words rang out in my head.

"Now might be the worst time to tell you, but I wanted to say it, just once in my existence."

The ache in my chest raged as the rain pattered against my face.

I glanced over my shoulder, expecting to see some flash of hope on his face betraying his lie.

Instead, my gaze was met by a defeated being with his eyes fixed on the sodden ground, as if the words were meant to be some secret whispered to the earth and then buried there.

"I love you and I will love you until I turn my last page," he murmured, his voice desolate.

I should have felt happy to hear those three little words, but I'd heard them before, and they'd led to nothing but pain and destruction. Now it would take more than 'I love you' to fix what had transpired between us.

I needed the truth.

"What were your orders, Book Boy?" I asked while my body battled the penetrating cold of the rain.

His eyes flit to mine, their brilliant blue depths burning with turmoil.

"I can't," he choked out.

I nodded, wiping a tear away angrily as I replied, "No... you won't."