Free Vanish by Sophie Jordan

kind.
    Glaring at the shrouded figure, I snatch at the cord and the blinds fall into place with a noisy rattle. But still I imagine him there, see him staring back at me, watching, waiting.
    It’s strange. I’m back in the home I’ve longed for, in cool mists and air that weeps kisses over my thirsting flesh. But dead desert might as well surround me. Again. And this time there is no Will to revive me. There is nothing.
    That night I make sure my window is locked. A precaution I never took before, even when I was in Chaparral, but for some reason I feel the need to do it tonight, with Corbin’s glowing eyes imprinted on my mind.

Chapter 8
    D ays pass quietly, like pages turning in a book, one after the other. As my life sinks into a routine, the loneliness bears deep, gnawing at me. Dusk settles as I walk home from work. The mist rides thick and the fading sunlight struggles to penetrate the opaque air, breaking through in patches here and there, staving off the night.
    I hear him before I spot him. Cassian materializes in the mist before me, his tread soft on the path. We both stop and face each other. He lives on the other side of the township. I can guess the reason he’s this far south. I know where he’s coming from, where he’s been. The same place he’s been spending most of his time.
    “Cassian,” I greet, twisting my fingers until they ache, rubbing at the flesh, as though the blood were still there from all the fish I cleaned today.
    “Jacinda. How are you?” He asks this like we’re polite acquaintances. And I guess we are in a way. We’ve become that. Since he decided to focus on my sister. Suddenly I loathe the sight of him. I feel used, lied to. He never wanted me. Never really liked me for me.
    The mist strokes my face as I glare up at Cassian, something inside me unraveling, like ribbons on a package coming undone.
    Cassian stares down at me, his arms behind his back. Like Severin or another elder glowering down at me, and I guess he’s on his way to being one of them.
    My skin prickles with resentment. I hate it when he reminds me of them—of his father. It’s a bitter pill after he almost convinced me he was different. I wanted to believe him. The words he told me in Chaparral when he was trying to get me to come home with him echo in my head.
    There’s something in you . . . you’re the only thing real for me there, the only thing remotely interesting.
    Lies to get me to trust him. Or he changed his mind. Either way, I don’t interest him anymore. Not as Tamra does.
    Finally, when I don’t answer, he says, “You’ve got to stop this.”
    “Stop what?”
    He dips his head, looks at me through shadowed eyes. “Stop making it so damn hard on yourself. Pining for some—”
    “I don’t want to hear this.” I shake my head. “Not that you really care, but I’ve let it go.” It’s easier saying it . Even though we both know I mean Will.
    “Then why do I still see him in your eyes?”
    A hiss of pain escapes me.
    I lash out with one knotted fist against his dense-muscled chest, taking out every frustration, every pain on him.
    He doesn’t move. I hit him again. Still nothing. He takes it. Stares at me from the impenetrable black of his eyes. With a strangled cry, I hit him again and again. Landing blows anywhere I can reach. My vision blurs, and I realize I’m crying.
    This only infuriates me more. Breaking down in front of Cassian, losing control, succumbing to weakness as he stands witness . . .
    “Jacinda,” he says, then again, louder, because I don’t stop, can’t stop the flurry of my fists on the solid wall of him. “Enough!”
    He stops me. I guess he always could have, but now he actually does it. He hauls me close, not so much a hug as a body lock, both arms wrapped around me.
    It’s disconcerting, our bodies so close, pressed tightly together. Our breaths fall in a fast, matching rhythm.
    I pull back my head, look into his face. See him as I never