"Those other men were fools," James said.
Hailey lifted her head from his chest, her hand over his heart. She loved being cuddled up close to him, loved basking in his strength. "You're only saying that because I'm such a good kisser," she teased.
James rolled over, covering her with his big, muscular body. "I'm saying it because they were idiots for letting you go," he kissed her before adding, "and they were weak if they couldn't deal." He nipped at her chin and kissed the same spot.
Hailey pulled a face at the male arrogance in that statement. She'd come to know many different facets of the man behind the Silent soldier, but that aspect of his personality wasn't something he'd discarded with his Silence. "Well, well. So you're saying you're able to 'handle' me?" James bit her earlobe, making her jerk. She played her fingers through his hair.
"Yes," he answered, his breath caressing her neck.
She loved it when he did that. It was like he flicked a switch to turn her on all over again. Shuddering, she chastised him. "Arrogant man."
He bit the shell of her ear. "Confident."
Her hands clenched in his hair and she pulled up his head. "Extremely arrogant."
James' eyes flashed. "I believe this is called a stalemate."
Hailey felt her stomach muscles tighten by the sight of him, his mussed hair, bright eyes and the gleaming gold of his skin.
God, he's handsome. And he's all mine.
"No, this is a perfect example where you're wrong and I'm right," she deliberately challenged him but was unable to keep a straight face, laughing when James nipped at the upper slope of her breast.
He really was trying to embrace the changes she brought into his life.
No, that's not quite right. He wasn't just trying; he was actually doing it. And she felt her heart swell impossibly more for this beautiful man.
Her beautiful Arrow.
It wasn't just his handsome appearance that made him beautiful. He was strong, protective, passionate and he had a bigger heart than he knew. She told him as much, but he shook his head.
"There are a lot of things you don't know about me, Hailey. Don't fool yourself by believing I'm a good person. I'm not." Dark words filled with echoes of painful memories.
Hailey pushed at his chest and he fell back on the bed. She turned to her side, her head resting on her hand as she watched him. "Tell me why."
Of course she didn't believe him, regardless of what she'd witnessed today. Apparently, James was determined to see himself as some terrible monster. She needed to understand why before she could counter him full throttle. Because she would. She would fight for him.
James was staring at the ceiling as he spoke. "I've done things under authority of the Council that would repulse you. The missions I've been on recently–" His voice broke off.
Worry filled her heart. "Hey," she said as she cupped his cheek. His gaze met hers and she saw haunting shadows in eyes of the deepest blue, shadows no man should have to live with alone. "Nothing you could tell me will make me reject you."
He grabbed her wrist, his voice sharp, demanding her full attention. "You don't know that. You don't know the things I've done." His tone sounded final, but for his stark features and taut body.
Hailey's heart broke for him. So much suffering, she thought, so much pain inside of him. And he believed it would be a reason for her to turn him down. But the fact that he carried the pain of his past was all the more reason for her to embrace him.
So, she pushed past her own fear of rejection to give him all of her. "James," she whispered as she met the shadows in azure, faced his darkness with open eyes and an open heart, "I adore you. I love you. You can't scare me away by being stubborn or harsh." He released her wrist when she moved to touch his cheek. "That strategy never worked well for you. I'll just fight you for it, which will result in incredible make up sex."
James felt his heart ache at Hailey's words. He knew she was speaking the truth; her eyes were completely brown, all sparks of jade and gold disappearing because of the intensity of her emotions. He also knew she was trying to hide her fear by making a smart comment in her heartfelt confession. He understood why.
He wanted to return the words to her, give her what she needed so badly, it hurt. But it was like the words were smothered, slammed down by the spike of dissonance that kicked in when she'd told him she loved him. Releasing his Tk into the air, thunder shuddered the building as flashes lit up the air behind Hailey.
Hailey smiled slightly, understanding in the deep brown of her gaze. "It's okay. You don't have to tell me," she said as she kissed him softly.
They lay there in her bed quietly for long moments, her legs tangled with his, his arm underneath her head, her hand splayed over his heart. James almost thought Hailey had fallen asleep, but then she asked him a question that made his muscles go taut.
"Why do you feel it's your purpose to serve the Squad?"
She hadn't rejected him so far, but was he willing to push her tolerance? Willing to risk losing her by explaining why he had deserved the severe torture of training? Why he had to redeem himself with every mission, even though it was impossible?
"If the high risk Psy are locked away or dead, the civilians stay safe and they can't do any more harm." And that was something he couldn't say for himself.
Hailey seemed to notice the hidden depth in his statement. She sat up and frowned, staring intently at the floor as several pieces of clothing levitated towards her, and threw him his boxers. While he sat up and clothed himself, she slid on his thermal shirt and pushed up the sleeves, the garment large enough to reach her upper thighs. It was a satisfying and pleasant sight to witness, Hailey dressed in his clothes. The dark possessiveness that lived inside him stretched in acquiesce, content with branding her in every possible way.
Hailey pulled her hair out of the back of the shirt and thrust a hand through the dark mass before she spoke. "Beyond the obvious reasons, it still doesn't explain why you feel so determined to catch them, why you call it your purpose in life. Especially because you posed to be Silent."
There it was, her piercing intelligence, her direct honesty. James was unable to comprehend how she knew him so well, how she could see him. Closing his eyes, he knew he couldn't withhold the truth from her. Giving her honesty after all she'd given him was the very least he could do.
"When I was five and a half, I discovered I could teleport." James' deep voice filled the quiet. His hand lifted to play a dark tendril of her hair through his fingers. "At first it seemed harmless. I teleported to another room or to the garden of our family unit. Sometimes, when I woke at night, I'd teleport to the rooftop and watch the passing traffic on a highway close to our residence." He looked at his hand while he kept playing with her hair, and Hailey was aware he wasn't making eye contact on purpose. She knew that whatever was coming was bad; she'd never seen James this… quiet.
He's scared, Hales. Your tough, ruthless Arrow is scared of what he'll see when he looks at you… Scared of what you'll see when you look at him.
Hailey's fingers brushed his thigh as she listened.
"I lived together with my father but since he was often busy working, he didn't notice the teleports at first. When he did, he told me to limit it as much as possible and placed a psychic leash on my Tk." He frowned a little. "I think he knew what would happen if the PsyCouncil found out about my ability to teleport. I was on the Council's radar from the moment I caused a power outage when I was four; a burst of my Tk influenced the atmosphere. I don't think he wanted me to leave, since he declined their financial compensation back then."
Hailey's heart clenched. What James described sounded an awful lot like a father protecting his son, caring for him and shielding him from a life filled with horrors. She wondered if they were still in touch but didn't want to interrupt James' story, so she listened when he started speaking again.
"The plan to limit the teleports worked for a few months." James paused and looked into her eyes. Hailey could almost physically feel his apprehension.
Unraveling her hair from his fingers, she pulled his hand up to her lips and kissed the palm, placing it over her heart as a silent reminder of her earlier words. "What happened?"
James swallowed, his gaze on the hand covering her chest. "One day, I was playing and teleported to the kitchen. My father was preparing food and tripped over me when I completed the travel. A pan filled with hot water fell over me."
Hailey bit her lip, forced herself to listen rather than respond.
"The pain was so extreme and my emotional response was so intense, I broke the psychic leash. Because I was so young, I was unable to control my ability. I unintentionally teleported myself to the middle of the busiest highway of Montreal, the one I always watched from our rooftop. The moment when I saw cars would drive into me, I averted them with my Tk."
James briefly met her eyes and his hand jerked on her chest. "Even as a small child it had become apparent my skillset was powerful. My father only never realized how powerful it had become until that day. The road tore open and arched upwards, causing cars to slam down to the earth. People died." Prussian shadows covered the azure of his irises as James stared unseeingly at the hand on her chest. "I still remember the sound of a mother crying for her two daughters. Their car had hit the ground hard enough to smash the back. Both girls were crushed in the vehicle."
He released a breath before looking up at her. "Needless to say, the Council heard of the incident instants after it happened. Within ten minutes it had been decided that my father had to give up his custodial rights. I was sent to a hospital to recover from the burns. Four days later, I arrived at the Arrow facility in Baghdad."
Hailey stroked her hand through his hair, comforting him with touch. "That's why you insisted on staying Silent, isn't it?"
"Yes. My emotional response combined with the pain I experienced caused me to lose control. I never wanted to be in the position where I could harm others again like that. So you see," he said as he locked eyes with her again, azure filled with distance, "the violence, the darkness, it's a part of me. It has been since I was a small boy who killed those two sisters and injured others."
Her heart tore for her Arrow, for the innocent child that had accidentally caused wreckage. He must have been so scared, so confused, especially after being separated from the one person he trusted, the person who seemed to care beyond the construct of Silence.
And all those experiences must have scarred his soul so, so much.
James was never meant to be Silent, Hailey realized. The intensity of his emotions was a force as potent as his telekinesis. And all this time he'd locked them away behind a wall of frost and self-hatred, the guilt eating away at him. She bit her lip in order to stop herself from soothing him, knowing that pity would be unwelcome. He deserved more, this strong Arrow, deserved to be looked upon with pride for all he'd survived.
"You've never teleported ever since then?" she asked instead.
"No. After almost a year of extra disciplinary measures the trainers decided it wasn't worth the effort if I kept refusing. The combination of my Tk and F-abilities was useful enough to keep me in Baghdad."
Hailey inched closer. "I'm sorry for what happened." She brushed her fingers along his jaw. "And now you're trying to make amends by preventing others from becoming victims?" She couldn't comprehend why he didn't think he was good. He wasn't just a soldier, wasn't a monster. He was a protector. "When will it be enough?"
His eyes lifted to hers, his gaze hard as stone. "Never."
"James," she whispered, her heart tearing even further for him. "I understand the choices you're making, but this can't be worth the price you're paying." He was exchanging his soul for the mistakes of a child, a child that wasn't to blame for his actions.
"Even before that happened, I was violent. I was nearly kicked from the school I attended when I was five because I got into fights with other children."
Hailey blinked. It sounded so uncharacteristic, for him to act impulsively. "Why did you fight them?"
James gave her a flat glare. "It doesn't matter. It doesn't change the fact that I've injured and killed more people in the six years before Arrow training than most would their entire lifetime."
Ignoring her aching heart, Hailey gripped his chin. "Why did you fight?" James didn't answer, so she pushed. She felt no guilt whatsoever of using this against him if it would give her ammunition to fight for him. "You promised me you wouldn't lie to me. Stay silent and I'll consider it a lie by omission."
He glared at her, azure flames blazing in his eyes. "Be careful, Hailey. You can only push so far."
"Or else what?" she challenged him. Never, ever would he hurt her, even if he lost control over his telekinesis. "What will you do? Finally see sense?" She moved closer, brushed her lips over his, cupped his face in her hands. "You didn't just fight other children for fun. I don't believe that." Another feather-light kiss. "Tell me."
His jaw hard as steel, he finally answered her question. "A group of them used to beat up the goose changelings."
Hailey's lips twitched at the victory of his gritted-out words. "Did you win?"
"Don't." He pulled back from her hold and looked at her in that flat way, as if her words didn't matter, his mind already made up. "It doesn't make it right. The only way to balance out the evil is to fight evil as malicious. Everything I've done… it's not a debt I can repay."
She scowled. "So you keep going? Keep hunting down the most dangerous people in the world because of a situation that had been an accident? Because you were a child who stuck up for the ones that needed your protection?"
"Yes."
"No!" Hailey placed her hand on his chest, covering the heart that was hers and hers alone. "What if you get hurt? What if something goes wrong during one of those missions and you get injured–or worse–die?" The mere thought of facing the world without him caused her to shudder in rejection.
"Then it's probably what I deserve." It was a statement so calm, it lit the fire in her veins.
"How can you say that? How can you possibly believe that to be true?" She cupped his face again. "What about this? What about us?"
James moved with lightning speed, one hand fisted in her hair, the other clenched on her hip. Not under any circumstance would Hailey allow herself to flinch, not even out of surprise. She would not feed the guilt her beautiful Arrow dragged along like a stone weight. Fully aware he'd made the move on purpose to prove his point, she held onto his gaze, unblinking.
"I have to do it. You can't stop me," James said, openly challenging her.
Hailey reined in the urge to argue and inhaled deeply, deciding to use a different strategy to make him see the absurdity of his logic. "What if it was me?" When he frowned ever so slightly, she clarified her question. "What if I was the one going after those Psy, endangering my life on a regular basis because of a misplaced sense of guilt?"
His eyes turned dark again, his tone final. "You could never do it."
The harsh way in which he'd said it–as an attempt to insinuate her weakness–made Hailey bare her teeth at him. She hadn't lied when she told him she wasn't impressed by his harshness anymore. It was almost as if he was waiting for her to turn him down, to walk away without a fight.
He really can act stupid for a man of his intelligence.
Then again, that was the response he'd had his entire life. No people who'd comfort him and love him. No one to listen to that enticing voice, to hear him. He'd only ever been used as a tool, as a weapon for others to aim and fire at will. And now the time had come where such responses were possible–with her, with the other Arrows–but he had already learned to deal with everything by himself… in a rather unhealthy, self-destructive way.
"You can't either," she hissed, a little annoyed that he was trying to manipulate her in a self-fulfilling prophecy. "It shouldn't be anyone's 'purpose' to face such horrors time after time."
She shivered at the memory of the news footage during the outbreaks of insanity in the PsyNet. It had been a massacre. Streets painted red with blood, bodies slung over cars, even children whom were murdering other children.
Shaking her head, she spoke again. "No one can survive that for years and remain whole. It'll destroy you."
"It's not your choice to make."
Again, he was trying to shut her out, trying to push her away, but Hailey wasn't having it. No way. He's mine, mine to protect. Especially from himself.
"Yes, it is," she insisted. "You made it my choice the moment you decided you wanted me. I'm not saying you shouldn't do your job, but if you keep going at this rate, it'll consume you. I won't let you waste your life because of something that wasn't your fault! You were a child."
James cupped the side of her face, his fingers weaving through her hair, something vulnerable clouding over the hardness his eyes. "You can't save me from this, Hailey." His voice was quiet as he brushed his thumb over her cheekbone. The defeat she saw in his eyes… that wasn't her Arrow.
What she saw then were the scars of the boy who believed he was a violent murderer, undeserving of hope, evil ready to be banished with all the monsters he'd hunted. Harsh, pitiless, cold and angry, all those things she would allow James to be. But never, ever would she allow him to give up on himself, to walk back in the shadows and stay there for the rest of his lifetime.
"I can and I will!" Fury intertwined with protectiveness, her Tk lashed out and the furniture shuddered in her apartment.
This wasn't something indisputable.
"Are you aware you're forgetting something?" She crossed her arms in front of her chest. "You're forgetting us!"
"It doesn't change anything," he said bluntly as he dropped his hand.
Stupid, stupid man!
"It changes everything. You can't expect me to watch you kill yourself." She slid off the bed and walked a few steps away before turning towards him. "Maybe not because of physical injuries but there are other ways to die." Her hands curled into fists beside her body, her senses raw. She couldn't stand by while he was punishing himself for something he had no control over. It wasn't right. "You don't get to do that to me. I deserve more, and so do you."
Her words lingered heavily in the air between them for long moments. Hailey drew in a deep breath as she watched the beautiful man sitting on the side of her bed. The beautiful man who'd lived a cruel, brutal life and still was able to touch her with untamed desire, protect her with bone-deep passion. There was far more to him than met the eye. Now, he just needed to see that.
She tipped up her chin when James got off the bed and towered over her, thrusting his hands in her hair and placing his forehead against hers.
"You would fight for me?" His voice soft and low and rough, the sheer weight of his exposed need in that question triggering Hailey's protective instincts.
"Always." It was a fierce promise, fire in her eyes as she rested her hands on his chest. "You cannot fill the void inside yourself with more violence and death. It's not healthy."
His knuckles caressed her cheek. "Aden said something along the same lines." He lifted his head. "I didn't understand it then."
Hailey gave him a wry smile. "But you do now." Curiosity colored her next question. "What did he do?"
A spark in James' eyes, a twitch in the corner of his mouth. "He assigned me to mentor you."
Hailey snorted and shook her head. She reminded herself never to underestimate the force that was Aden Kai. "You probably weren't too happy about that."
"No. But as a subordinate to a commander, I didn't have a choice."
She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him deeply, fulfilling his need with hers. "You do now. I suggest you should choose what makes you happy," she said softly.
James cupped her jaw and brushed his thumb over her lower lip. Hailey closed her eyes for a moment and smiled. "I did. It worked out fine." Her eyebrow rose. "When you're not being such a presumptuous and arrogant man."
Warmth uncurled in James' chest, the tension in his body slowly fading. He didn't have the will to fight her anymore, not when she was fighting for him, for the boy that had killed and had been brutally tortured for it decades after. Hailey's unconditional acceptance of his dark soul and his blood-stained hands meant more to him than he could articulate.
"I believe you meant to say determined and confident man," James countered her taunt.
Hailey grinned and he felt the corner of his mouth tug as tiny flickers jolted in his chest. Her eyes turned golden as her smile grew even wider and she pressed her lips onto his. She nipped at his lower lip, her fingernails a biting sensation on the skin of his shoulders. His chest rumbled as he grabbed hold of her hair, tugging her head back gently as she surrendered to his rugged kisses.
The feel of Hailey in his hands, it would always make him complete. It was like she was his other half and life only made sense when they were together. Perhaps that was the key, perhaps the void inside of him needed her light, her love, instead of the anger and guilt and pain.
"James," Hailey's soft whisper drew his instant attention. "You should think about what it costs you. Don't decide right now, but promise me you'll think it over." She kissed him softly and he held her close, her warmth seeping over into him.
That night James slept with Hailey in his arms, reconsidering his purpose in life as he nuzzled the hair of the most beautiful and important person that had ever walked into his world.