" I've told you all there is to know. The important parts anyway. For now, could you please stop talking and focus? Because we need to figure this out before I die of old age," He settles toe to toe with me, and I try my best to keep my expression neutral. Trying my best not to notice that his icy blue eyes have taken a cobalt hue, the way his features are shadowing, and how incredibly handsome he is. He doesn't have to speak to distract me. He just has to exist.
Clearing my throat, I close my eyes, deciding that it is for the best and focus on the faint flow of energy. It flows through me at a steady pace not too fast, not too slow. It is strangely familiar, but I am also foreign at the same time and I find a certain relief in the knowledge that there isn't enough to cause any real damage. I still don't know how Graham survived, or Mason for that matter.
" Increase the flow," Mason says flatly, and I try my best to focus and draw more but nothing happens. After a good ten minutes, I crack open one eyelid and find Mason staring at me.
" It's not working," I point out the obvious.
" It must've taken you a great deal of effort to reach that conclusion," He smirks, and tilts his head to the side, studying me.
" You're not helping," I say quietly, trying my best to keep any scathing remark to myself.
" Also, it would help if you'd get off your fucking high horse for a minute, and stop blaming me for everything," Well, I tried. I feel another argument is in the making. This is not going to work if we don't stop bickering like a bunch of old bitter ladies. But it's so hard when he won't let go of the old grudges. It makes me wonder why is so hell-bent at keeping his distance. I hurt him, I hurt those who cared about me when I decided to stay away. And I get that I've upended his life, but I did the same with mine. I stop myself because this train of thought is getting dangerous and it is also getting me nowhere.
He lets go of my hands, and steps off the slab of stone letting out a string of curses, and stops when he reaches one of the pillars, muttering to himself. He is on the verge of blowing up, going nuclear on me, and I'm pretty sure that I can't take it. Not after this morning. But I think the same every time he does it, and I'm beginning to think that I'm developing a certain type of immunity against it, because every time he pulls away, he always tends to come back like a boomerang, more vicious than the last time. Somehow, I'm starting to think that he and Ava are a match for each other, more than I'm for him.
" You....Fuck," He turns to face me, closing the distance between us, stopping only when we are nose to nose. He is fuming, again.
" You drive me insane," His tone is lethally quiet," You live in my head, no matter what I do, you are always in the here. I can't stop thinking about you. And I can't decide whether to kill you myself or fuck some sense into you," I'm speechless. Where did that come from?
Anger, sadly is a powerful emotion capable of blinding even the most logical person, because it's not a thought it is an emotion. And emotions, well, emotions are unpredictable, hard to control and helluva destructive.
I blink at him, it seems to be the only thing I'm capable of, whatever he needs to get off his chest, he needs to get it out now because living in a constant state of fuming and raging mad doesn't help our case.
Panting, his blazing gaze holding mine hostage," You ran, and didn't even look back. You didn't care that I was going out of my mind looking for you," He is heaving, staring straight into my eyes, and all I can see is the blaze in them, scorching my retina with the sheer intensity of his anger.
" I didn't feel human for the first time in my life. I felt like the fucking living dead," He is shouting in my face, and I quietly take all his anger because he needs me to take it.
" Why would I let you in again? So you can run off when things get hard?" Good question. He abruptly stands straight, blinks and all of it is gone. He returns to being his serene, composed old self. I'm mildly shocked by the sudden change.
" Don't, " He says when I open my mouth to answer his questions.
" Whatever you have to say, I don't want to hear it, Lily," His brows pinch together, while his eyes roam over my features, searching for something. I'm not sure what.
" We should focus on training not rehashing old grudges. It is pointless anyway, " He says with mild annoyance. I guess that is that. I'm in no mood to fight anymore. I'm too tired to deal with him as well as everything. I just wished he would cut me some slack all things considered.
" Again," He offers me his hands and I stare at them as if he is a poisonous animal.
" Don't worry. I won't bite. Not yet anyway," Great. I don't even know what that means, but judging by the drop in his tone, I'd think he is flirting with me. No, he wouldn't. He just spent the last five minutes telling me why he wouldn't.
Tentatively, I take one of his hands, he leans in ever so slightly and takes the other one.
" Empty your mind, and let the energy flow through you. Your instinct and nature is to hoard it. Fight that instinct and let it flow through you," I frown at the advice. I've only released it in small increments. I've only gone apocalyptic when I was desperate.
" Sure," I say with an unerring amount of calm. It is not how I feel inside.