“What are you doing here?” I asked, my voice sharper than I’d intended it to be.

The green of Will’s eyes had been placid but troubled, and then they flashed, as if my words had stung him. He looked down briefly. “I wanted to make sure your day went all right. That you’re all right.”

I walked right past him to the driver’s side door. “I’m alive, aren’t I?”

He followed me. “I don’t want to fight.”

I realized then that we hadn’t spoken for days, which was strange for me. It seemed like I saw him every single day. I was so used to his presence near me, all around me, and even when I was furious with him, I noticed his absence. I missed him. I missed him even now, when he was standing only two feet away from me. But I was still too mad to give in to the effect he had on me.

“Please just hear me out,” Will pleaded.

I opened my mouth to interject, but he spoke again quickly.

“I did what I had to do. I know you don’t understand that now, and I don’t expect you to. Ellie, I’m sorry that I hurt you.” He reached out a hand to touch my face, his fingers warm in the bitter cold air. “You know I’d never hurt you on purpose.”

I closed my eyes at his touch and swallowed shakily. “Regardless of your intentions,” I said slowly, “you still hurt me. And I’m not ready to forgive you yet.”

He took my hand and lifted it to his mouth. His lips kissed my palm, and wings fluttered through my insides. He looked down at my hand for just a moment before returning my gaze painfully. “Please, please forgive me. I can’t bear the way you look at me now.”

I pulled away. “Let’s talk in the car.”

After I sat down and he climbed into the passenger seat, we fell into an awkward silence.

“She was going to divorce him,” I confessed. “She was going to get out, be safe. But we were too late. I was too late to save her.”

“Don’t blame yourself.” His voice was a whisper.

I frowned and swallowed. “It doesn’t matter that you and everyone else keep saying that. I’ll feel like this no matter what.”

“I know,” he said. “But it isn’t your fault.”

If I continued to argue with him, I would only get angry, and I was desperate not to get mad at him anymore. I was tired of fighting with him.

“You understand why I did it, right?” he asked in a small voice.

He didn’t elaborate, but I knew what he was talking about. “There had to be something else you could have done,” I said.

“There may have been,” he admitted. “I don’t deny the possibility of it. But Nathaniel and I made a decision. The reaper said he killed your father years ago, and we don’t have a body for the police to find. Your father would have been a suspect anyway. This was the most logical and safest solution for you.”

I glared at him. “My real dad was a good man, Will. He is a victim in this, and now the whole world thinks he’s a monster. He was never a monster. A monster is what killed him, and now my family and I will have to live with this lie for the rest of our lives!”

I took a deep breath to erase the anger from my voice. “I’m sorry that I hurt you. I never wanted to hurt you or Nathaniel. I didn’t know that it was you trying to hold me back.”

“You weren’t trying to kill me,” Will said. “You were defending yourself and your mother.”

“Whether I tried to kill you or not, I almost did. I can’t let that happen again. I feel like every slightest emotion that I have is about to send me over the edge. Everything is so magnified. I can’t handle myself. I’m dangerous, and you know it.”

“You can handle this.”

“I heard you guys talking when Nathaniel had me under. That I’d never gotten that bad before. That my … eyes had changed. Nathaniel said that I—Gabriel—knew that if I became dangerous—”

“No.”

“—that you would have to—”

“Ellie, that’s out of the question.”

“But I’ll come back,” I assured him. “You are the only one who is strong enough to defend yourself against me. If I might hurt someone else, someone who isn’t as strong as you, then this may be the only answer.”

“No,” he repeated firmly, his jaw clenching as he shook his head and shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “No. I won’t. Not ever.”

“You may not have a choice.”

“You can’t ask me to do that. Ask me anything else, anything but that. I would let you kill me first.”

I watched him sadly, unable to think about losing him, no matter how angry I was or how much my heart hurt. Every one of my Guardians before Will had been killed in battle, and now I remembered each one of their deaths like a knife to my heart.

“Something happened to me that night that I didn’t tell you about,” I said, my voice breaking. “When I lost it, everything came rushing back to me all at once. I remember everything. I’ve spent five hundred years with you, and I remember them all.”

He laid his hand over mine and held it. I forced myself to take back my hand, but the movement was unbearably difficult. Bastian’s face flashed across my mind, and then Merodach and Kelaeno invaded behind him. I couldn’t face them without Will. I couldn’t save the world on my own.

“I’m going out with Kate tomorrow,” I said. “Afterward we will go patrolling. But I need to feel happy at least once before I launch into Terminator mode and go after Bastian. I’m going to kill them all.”