"Stop! Let go of me-" I scream out, hoping to catch someone's attention but the man covers my mouth with his hand.

My feet are implanted stubbornly onto the ground and I grip hard onto him as he tries to push me off the edge.

When I look down, I can see the water and suddenly it's not sparkling and beautiful anymore; it's dark and dangerous.

"Move, bitch," he hisses, his hands gripping my waist so tight that it burns.

One of my feet skids off the concrete and hangs off the edge. I'm going to fall, but it's okay. I'm a good swimmer, I can manage to swim back to shore. I can do it, unless the currents are too strong – or there's rocks or-

An arm slips around the guys neck and he gets jerked backwards while I hold onto him for dear life until i'm safely on the ground and I scrabble away from the edge.

When I look up, my saviour is identified as Jax. He uses his elbow to hit the guy in the neck until he's choking, then he pushes him to the edge and kicks him in the stomach, making him fall straight off the pier.

"Oh my god," I scoot further away from the edge, my eyes wide in fear and my heart beating out of my chest.

"Are you okay?" Jax gets down beside me.

"No, no i'm not fucking okay. He almost-" I take a few quick breaths. "You pushed him off. How are you here? Did you follow me? Why did he try to kill me?"

"Listen, we need to get away from here." He looks around then stands up, holding his hand out to help me and I take it.

"Do you think he's dead?" I ask quietly as we walk down the pier.

"Hopefully."

"How can you say that? You don't even feel bad?"

"Yasmin, his job was to kill you and Alex."

"How- Why? How would you know that?"

"Caleb called me and told me 'bout a guy in the same prison as him who worked for Caligari. He said that Johnny had plans to get you two killed. I don't know what he has against you though."

"I stabbed him with a pencil."

"Damn." He shoves his hands in his pockets and seems to relax when we get off the pier.

"So, Dad told you to come here and protect us? Did you just plan on following me everywhere?"

"Good thing I did or you'd be in that imbecile's position."

"Why are you not affected by the fact that he's probably dead? Even I have sympathy and i'm the one he had dangling off the pier."

"Some things just have to be done."

"Is this the first time you've... killed someone?"

"No," he says hesitantly and I freeze.

"Jax..."

"Don't look at me like that. I only hurt the people who mess with my family."

"I can't even-" I put my hands up to my head and start walking faster in front of him.

I don't want to go home. I can't go back and pretend to be happy families after what just happened. There's only one person that comes to mind when I think about somewhere I can go.

"Where are you going?" He asks when I take the turn down another street.

"My friends house."

"You should come back so you're safe."

"I am safe. That guys gone."

"There could be others-"

"Stop following me!"

"This is why I don't want fucking children," he mumbles. "l'll take you there then leave."

I don't speak anymore as he follows behind me. When I arrive, Jax finally turns around and walks away but keeps looking behind him until the door opens.

"Yasmin, hi. What a nice surprise," Danielle greets and moves out of the way to let me in. "Jace didn't mention you were coming over."

"I didn't tell him." I put my still shaking hands into my hoodie pocket.

"Well, he's in his room. Go on up."

I thank her and head up the stairs, pausing outside his door. I always get that feeling every time i'm in this position – fear i'll walk in and be hurt somehow.

When I finally open the door, I see Jace sitting at his desk on his laptop. He has a stern face as he looks hard at the screen, and it takes him a few seconds to look up. His eyes widen from surprise as he didn't expect me to be here and I close the door.

"Yasmin," he breaths. "What's wrong?"

I don't know how he manages to tell that somethings wrong with me from just standing here with my hands in my pocket, but for that reason I avoid looking him in the eyes as he may discover too much.  

Jace stands up and walks over slowly. I keep my eyes lowered to his shirt the whole time, then he stops walking but doesn't speak, making me look up to his face. Both of us, at the same time put our arms around each other and stand there in a warm hug for a few minutes without saying anything.

"What happened?" He finally asks in a calm, quiet voice.

"Everything in my life has gone to shit," I say, my voice muffled by my mouth being against his shoulder.

"You can cry, you know. It's okay."

I shake my head and stand back. "I'll be okay. I just didn't know where to go."

"What happened?"

Sighing, I sit down on his bed. "My uncle Jax is back."

"And... you don't like him?" He sits down too.

"I do, but he's just not as great as we all thought he was."

"How?"

"He's killed people," I blurt out and Jace is silent. "He killed someone tonight."

"Seriously? Wh- How?"

"The guy was hired to kill me, so Jax did whatever he could to stop him."

"Tell me this is some dumb joke-"

"It's not," I turn my head and look at him. His big blue eyes are filled with shock and fear. "But i'm okay, well, I'm alive at least."

He puts an arm around me presses his face into the side of my head. "Why would anyone want to hurt you?"

"Maybe this is the universe trying to tell me that i'm a shit person and I need to be better."

"You're not a shit person."

"I don't see it that way."

He pulls back and puts his hand under my chin to lift my head for me to look at him. "You're amazing, and don't think anything different than that. You deserve the best."

"You're wrong."

His eyes are intense as they stare into mine, leaving me hypnotised. My lips part my voice is soft and unrecognisable. I hate what he does to me. 

"You're so incredible that i'm willing to sacrifice my own feelings so you can be happy."

"What are your feelings?" I almost whisper.

There is a pause and his finger strokes my cheek and his eyes move to my lips. "I saw how happy you were when you saw Wes. I'm glad he makes you smile."

I don't know what to say to it and my thoughts are frozen on Jace in this moment and the way his lips move when he talks.

"Did you drink?" He asks.

"How do you know."

"Your eyes..." he slightly shakes his head and blinks a few times.

"I couldn't help it."

He puts his hand on my cheek again and pushes a strand of hair away from my face. "You should forgive yourself. It's okay to slip up a few times."

That was the best thing I could have possibly heard right now. I'm constantly fighting a battle with myself and Jace telling me that what I did was okay actually makes me believe it. Maybe I can let this one go, and I won't do it again.

My eyes avert to his lips, then his eyes, then his lips. I can't keep them away from them. There is a burning inside of me that I believe will only stop when the space between us is closed.

The voice in my head screams at me to stop even thinking such things, reminding me of Jace's playboy nature at the fact that I have a boyfriend. I always believed that even thinking about wanting to kiss another guy could be considered cheating, and I just did it.

"I think maybe I should go," I say and move my head backwards.

"You sound very unsure, as if you didn't even want to say that."

"I said I should go," I say then regret it.

"You should stay. It's not safe to go out in the dark right now, especially considering," he pauses and presses his lips together. "I'll take you home first thing in the morning."

He always puts things in a way that make the stubborn part of me allow it. "I'll sleep on the floor." I stand up and take my shoes off.

"You didn't have a problem with sleeping beside me-" he cuts himself off as he probably remembers that that was back before I had a boyfriend. I only half have a boyfriend right now, but even if we broke up I couldn't jump into bed with Jace. "I'll take the floor."

"No, it's your bed."

"I love my bed, but I wouldn't be a gentleman if I let the lady sleep on the floor," he smiles.

"You're already not a gentleman."

"I am, shh." He takes a pillow and blanket from his bed and throws it on the floor. "Do you... wanna watch a movie or something?"

"It's fine, you can go back to whatever you were doing." I look over at his laptop that has some website up.

He walks back to it and closes it. "I was just looking at the course I'm doin' at UD."

"Are you excited?" I ask and sit back down.

He shrugs. "It's just college. Only thing i'm looking forward to is banging-"

I raise an eyebrow and he cuts himself off, knowing how much I hate the way he speaks about girls.

He's saved by a knock on his door before Danielle comes in. "Alice is home and we're making ice cream sundaes. Do you two want to join?"

I want to smile but my face is still frozen in a frown. There is a warmth about Jace's family and Jace that I love. "Sure."

"Alice is so excited to see you," she beams.

"We'll be down in a sec," Jace tells her and she nods before closing the door again.

"So what are we doing in this one second that we have?"

"Come a little closer and you'll find out," he winks. "If you dare."

"I'd rather play barbies with Alice."

"You're a bad liar."

"Cut it out."

"You like it."

"Do not."

"Lying is a sin."

"You're a sin," I childishly say back and leave the room. While i'm walking downstairs I look over some of the apologetic texts from Wesley and ignore them, putting my phone back in my pocket.

My legs still feel like jelly from fear and when I finally reach the bottom I'm out of breath and take a moment to recover before being malled by Alice.

"It's okay if you just wanna lie down," Jace tells me, noticing my distress.

"No, i'm fine."

"You're a lot stronger than you give yourself credit for. I mean, someone tried to-" He looks away and gulps as if he can't say it aloud. "I just can't imagine you not being here."

I smile to break the seriousness because I can't handle these kind of conversations. "Yeah, what on earth would you do without my sarcasm and beautifulness?"

He looks away as if he hoped i'd give him a different response. Before he gets the chance to say anything, Alice comes bursting through the living room door.

"I can't believe you're here!" She squeals. "I'm going to have chocolate ice cream with chocolate chips and brownies on top! What are you having?"

I watch Jace walk past us and go through to the kitchen, then Alice pulls on my arm to bring my attention back to her. "Same," I respond and she giggles.

"Yay, lets go lets go." Im pulled into the kitchen where Jace is already digging into a tub of ice cream with a spoon.

"That's disgusting, scoop it into a bowl first," Danielle scolds him and whips his arm with a wash cloth.

Neil hands him the ice cream scoop. "Here, you can do the scooping since you're so eager."

"Oh, well I do love scooping," Jace says back and only Neil and I seem to understand what he meant by that.

"Boy, you don't say things like that with a lady in the room."

"Damn right," I agree and nudge against Jace and he smiles.

"Give Yasmin some first," Alice says and pushes a bowl over to Jace. She's such a sweet little angel.

"Give Yasmin a scoop?" He smirks and I pinch his arm.

"Shut up, you freak."

"You tell him, Yasmin," Danielle urges me on and I laugh.

"Don't encourage her to bully me," he sulks and stabs the scoop into the ice cream.

I spend the rest of the night laughing more than I have in a long time, and my mind is almost completely took off what happened earlier. I love Jace's family and I wish I could be around them a lot more, but I may not even be able to be around Jace unless I want to lose Wesley.

+++

teaser: alex finally has a reason to be overprotective

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