“Jax, you need to chill out,” Hunter says. He’s sitting in the chair across from me, eyeing my bouncing knee.

“I’m trying,” I mutter, willing myself to stop the bouncing. “I just … I feel uneasy.”

He presses his lips together, as if he’s deliberating what to say. “I know. We all feel that way. But if you get too worked up …” He wavers, sinking his teeth into his bottom lip, stopping himself from saying what he really wants to say.

I can fill in the gaps, knowing where his head’s at, because he knows where my head’s at.

“I’m not going to break down,” I assure him. Although, deep inside my mind, behind the glass that keeps that part of me in control, I can feel a whisper getting through, as if the glass has started to crack.

“You sure about that?” he questions, eyeing my knee again, which I have unknowingly started bouncing again.

I stop. “Yeah.” I don’t sound confident, and he can hear it. I don’t want to talk about my fucking issues right now, though. Can’t.

Besides, I don’t know why he’s zeroing in on me. We all have our problems. Mine have just been the most focused on because of that one fucking incident.

Blood is gushing out of the wound, pouring like a goddamn prisoner that’s been unleashed.

It’s all over the place.

Staining the bathroom floor with the truth that’s living inside me.

That’s been feeding on me, like a thirsty pain monster.

Watch me bleed.

Watch my pain.

It won’t fucking stop.

Part of me doesn’t want it to.

“Jax,” Hunter says carefully, his voice tearing me from the memory of the day I nearly bled to death. I was trying to bleed the pain of my past out of me. What I realized that day, though, as I lay on the floor, struggling to breathe, was that the only way to be painless was to be lifeless.

Pain equals life.

Death equals stillness.

Sometimes, I don’t know which one is worse.

“Please don’t start with me,” I tell Hunter. I can see all over his face that he’s about to try to shatter through that cracked glass wall. “I can’t handle it right now.”

His expression softens. “I’m not trying to push you. I just want to make sure you’re okay.”

I shrug. “I’m fine. She’s okay, right? So, why wouldn’t I be?”

“Who’s okay?” His tone carries speculation.

Who is she?

Raven?

Willow?

“You tell me,” I say, my damn knee bouncing again. This time, I just let it be. I have to. I have to let the restless out somehow.

Hunter swallows hard and lifts his hand to his face, resting it against his lips, probably trying to discreetly keep hidden whatever expression he has on his face.

I don’t say anything else. Like me, Hunter has his own issues of dealing with the things that eat away at him, and I don’t want to push him to break his own glass wall.