Chapter 99: The Hand I Refuse to Let Go
Easter~
Natalie was there one second—and gone the next.
I gasped, my grip tightening around Jacob’s hand as my eyes darted frantically around the room. The air still crackled with the energy of her sudden disappearance, the space where she had been standing now empty. My pulse pounded in my ears. I had seen Jacob do this countless times today—vanishing, reappearing, like gods walking among mortals—but something about the way she left... something about her urgency made my stomach twist.
Why had she gone like that? What had made her leave so fast? Was something wrong? Was she ok?
Jacob sighed beside me, and I turned to look at him. He wasn’t staring at the space Natalie had disappeared from. No, his warm brown eyes were fixed on me, steady and calm, as if he could see straight through my panic, through my fear, through every wound I had ever endured.
"You don’t have to be afraid anymore," he said, his voice deep and soothing. "You’re free now, you can live however you see fit. You don’t have to come with us. You don’t owe us anything."
His words should have reassured me. They didn’t.
I shook my head immediately. I didn’t even have to think about it. My fingers clung to his like my life depended on it.
Because it did.
"No."
Jacob tilted his head slightly, studying me with quiet curiosity. "No?"