Chapter 66: Sixty Six. My Treacherous Rational Mind is Ruining Our Relationship

“Wait here,” Jase tells me, already setting off toward the exit.

“Like hell!” is my response, all my trust in him having gone right out the window. He and his brother are in this together. They must be. Jase lured me back to his apartment, and Mike knew we would come here, clearly. Now he’s headed up here…

“Cassi, please.” Damn that heart-melting stare of his and that soothing voice just dripping with genuine sincerity. “I don’t know where that witch is. I have this building warded to keep her out, but if you go running outside now, she might very well grab you herself.”

“And you think you can protect me?”

“I am going to protect you.” His tone is so vehement. It’s like…

I belong to him already, and he knows that, so he’d defend me to the death.

Crazy thought, Cassi. Stop getting lost in his gorgeous eyes and think rationally about this. “Why should I trust you?” Yep, real hard-hitting question for which his answer will most certainly not be a lie.

“I… You have no reason to, but… I have not lied to you, not once, and I genuinely want to help.”

Well, shit. I believe you. But I don’t trust myself for believing in you so completely when I have zero rational foundation for that trust. So I give a wary nod, wait for you to head out the door, then instantly head into your bedroom, set on opening that window and climbing out the fire escape.

There is a pile of clothing in the corner of that bedroom that gives me further cause for mistrust – a woman’s sports bra and yoga pants. Yep, just like my high-school crush, Jase already has a girlfriend he failed to mention while getting naked with me. A girlfriend who looks to be about my size…

I am sick of being stuck in this toga dress with its clunky, long skirt, so I take a few seconds to slip into the discarded work out gear, topping it off with a purple tank top and a pair of boots sitting in a shopping bag at the side of the room. Jase’s lady friend is exactly my size as it turns out. She even has my same shoe size. Weird.

It is also weird how vividly I can picture Jase stripping this sports bra right off me while laying me down on this very bed and--

God, focus Cassi! If you do not go running out the window right this minute you might wind up ritually sacrificed, or maybe enslaved by this hunky supposed werewolf and his equally hot older brother…

That thought is not arousing.

I can tell myself that as firmly as I want to, but… Yeah, I need to call my therapist again. Though I’ll need to take out a line of credit or something to pay for that appointment.

I open the window and peek my head out, scanning the alley below for any sign of psycho Mike. He’s not waiting down there to cut off my escape, so I move as quickly and quietly as I can to lower the screeching ladder of this fire escape and make my way down to ground level.

No sooner have my feet touched ground does Mike come hurtling out the busted back door of this clinic. He’s not charging me. He was thrown right from his feet and sent rolling across the pavement, courtesy of Jase, already stalking out after him.

“The hell was that for!” Mike shouts, rubbing at his looking to be dislocated jaw, already snapping back into place with bruised flesh quickly fading.

Jase gives him no answer except another swing of the broken off pipe clutched in his left hand. “Like you didn’t do this!”

“Do what?” Mike demands, leaping back from the pipe so that it clangs off the pavement in a spray of sparks.

“Where is Carson?! And where the hell is Nick?!!” Jase screams, and Mike cocks his head, letting out a scoff and appearing genuinely flumoxed by that question.

“You got brain damage or something?”

Jase takes another swing at him, and Mike rips the pipe from his hands, pulling him close in a grapple-hold bear hug. “Look kid, I just came for my car, and I even forgive you for stealing my suit since I’m guessing you had no other clothing options when turning back this morning. Did you part ways with your little witch?” Jase stiffens, and so do I, already backing up rapidly toward the open end of the alley, away from them both. “Couldn’t forgive her and just had to leave her in the woods--?”

“You’re the one screwing the witch.” Jase insists, and Mike arches an eyebrow.

“Yeah, but I was clearly talking about… Look, whatever, just tell me where Cassandra is. We still need her for--”

“You’re not touching her.” Jase snarls, and my frantic retreat slows and turns into me crouching down hidden behind the dumpsters so I can continue my eavesdropping.

“What are you even talking about?” Mike demands, shaking his head. “You really do have brain damage--”

Jase head butts him, breaking his nose and throwing off his arms to escape his constrictive hold. Then he catches sight of me, peeking my head out from behind the dumpsters. I should not let him jog right up to me, and I really should not let him take my hand and pull me right along back over to Mike’s Bentley.

“Where are we going?” I press, and Jase casts a nervous glance over his shoulder at Mike, lowering his hand from his bleeding nose and stalking after us.

“I need to get you somewhere safe.”

“Where?” I repeat, still fully tense and suspicious.

Jase doesn’t answer right away. He just closes me up in the passenger seat, jumps behind the steering wheel and starts sparking together the stripped wires to get the engine started again. “My family has this farm. I haven’t been home in a while but… They can protect you from Mike, that I know. They will do the right thing and protect you. Assuming you haven’t… You haven’t been bitten right?”

“No!” I insist, clutching a hand to my forearm for some reason, but there’s nothing there, not even a scar. It’s just smooth, healthy skin. “I mean, not that I remember anyway…”

I trail off with a scream, as Mike reaches through the busted window and grabs Jase by the throat. “The hell are you doing--?”

The engine roars to life, and Jase guns the gas, dragging Mike a good dozen meters across the pavement before he finally lets go and falls face first to the cement. We shoot off down the road, and I cast a concerned glance over at Jase.

The bruises and nail marks on his neck are already healing though. “So werewolves have some super healing ability?” I press, and he gives a shaky nod.

“Yeah. I’m fine.” His eyes dart over to me briefly before focusing back on the road. “Though you’re… That outfit is more practical than the dress, sure, but where did you…?”

“Your girlfriend must have left it last time she was over,” I mutter, crossing my arms. “You really should have given her a drawer at least, not just left it all lying crumpled in the corner like that.”

“Girlfriend? What…?” He appears so genuinely puzzled. “I don’t have a girlfriend. The last time I had anyone over was like six months ago. And she didn’t leave behind any…”

“Look, you don’t have to lie to me.” I sigh. I hate it when they lie, trying to gaslight me into regretting ever daring to question them. “You say we never,” I give a nervous swallow, “did anything anyway, so whatever her name is, you have nothing to apologize for, right? And I will send back her clothes as soon as I find some replacements.”

“Look, maybe Nick had someone over--”

“Nick has the perfectly neat, minimalist bedroom with the window attached to the fire escape?” I know already that he doesn’t. That was Jase’s bedroom.

Though… How do I know that?

“You seriously found that outfit on my floor?” Jase murmurs, and… shit, I’m starting to agree with Mike. Maybe he does have brain damage and both our memories are screwed up, because he is genuinely alarmed and confused right now. “And even the boots fit?”

“Yeah,” I murmur. “I guess I really am your type.” Shit, why’d I say that?

I do not still want to have sex with him, not now, knowing he’s a cheating liar just like my last boyfriend. It doesn’t matter how hot he is, he is clearly way too good of an actor to ever be trustworthy.

We drive the next few kilometers in troubled, awkward silence, and… Why the hell am I letting him drive me out of the city like this? Why would I willingly go with him to some strange farm way out in the countryside. He is going to murder me.

“Pull over.” I order, already expecting him to make up some excuse and refuse to honor that request.

He hits the breaks in an instant though, looking over at me in concern. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

I give no answer save to try and open my door. I can’t though, the child-safety locks are on. “Unlock it.”

“Cassi--”

“Now!”

He hesitates, so I reach right over to his side to hit the unlock button. I lean right out across his lap, and he stiffens right up, so I try my best not to stay touching his bare chest for too long, pulling back the second I hear that reassuring click of the locks opening.

I shove open my door and start walking off back toward the rundown outskirts of my city.

“Cassi, it is not safe for you to--”

“Leave me alone!” I scream, overwhelmed and exhausted. “Touch me again, I will re-break your nose!” Though I know even that would not stop him. He’d just heal right up again and keep coming at me.

He doesn’t come after me though, seeming to realize how on edge and frightened I am. He stays inside that Bentley that kidnapped me this-- No, not even this morning, an entire month past. He stays watching me in the rear view mirror for... I don’t even know how long, until I finally stop checking over my shoulder and he finally pulls back onto the road and keeps driving.

I jump at the sound of those tires crunching the gravel, and wait until I see for certain he’s not heading back here to grab me again.

*"He would never hurt you."* Some distant voice inside me insists, but that psycho inner-voice has zero rational basis for that claim, so how the hell can I believe her?

I hitch a ride with some unthreatening looking soccer mom type. She even lets me borrow her phone as she drives me back downtown. I call my landlord first, and he tells me angrily that my possessions and furniture all went to his new tenant and they sold off all the rest. I really have been missing for an entire month, and with my dodgy pattern of half-paying my rent even before that kidnapping, I can understand him just giving up and evicting me like this.

I don’t spin him any sob story. All I do is apologize. Then I hang up and try calling Heather (the only phone number I have memorized other than my dad’s) to see if she’ll maybe let me crash at her place for a few days until I can cash my last paycheck.

She answers with a heavy sigh. “Thought you weren’t going to call again. What with you never answering my calls--”

“I don’t have my phone. Or my keys, or wallet,” I explain.

“Is this about to turn into another tall tale of you getting kidnapped again?”

* Again?* “I… I told you before?”

“Shit, you really are on drugs,” she mutters, and I just break down crying, much to the alarm of my driver the kindly middle-aged woman.

Turns out Heather is a really good friend. She lets me crash at her place, and shows me some websites of good rehab centers, despite me wearily trying to tell her that I was never in fact on drugs.

“It was just… this guy.” I settle on finally. It’s the only thing I can remember, and the only way I can explain this. “This total lying creep.”

*“Don’t remember him that way,”* that sad little voice in my head begs. It does cause this ache in my chest, defaming Jase like that…

“You were with him this entire time?” Heather asks. “He made you quit your job and everything?”

I give a treasonous nod and don’t supply any further details, and Heather doesn’t ask. She’s had some pretty unhealthy relationships herself.

Even though Jase and I were never in a relationship. All he did was freaking kidnap me and--

*“Do not remember him that way,”* my inner voice commands, and I find myself studying my reflection in the bathroom mirror. My face just doesn’t look right for some reason. She looks like a stranger. I mean, I like her well enough, but this is not me. Still, it’s the face that Jase was in love with, and maybe that’s why this is so painful... *“Don’t remember him at all.”*

“Do not remember any of it.” I speak the words aloud, and with that command I forget the realization as soon as I recall the fact that I am not really Cassi Banks.

Proteus’s Cassandra is dead and buried alongside he and Ravenna, and she will never be revived, not ever again.

She will be forgotten alongside Jase, and Cassi will move back in with her parents for a while and try to get back on her feet, to live an ordinary, empty life, the way she always wanted.

My life will always be empty without him, but he will be happy at least.

I need him to be happy.