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“Well, it turns out she’s alive after all. And she’s involved in some pretty scary stuff. That…that agent told me in the Chief’s office that she was responsible for nearly killing her. I couldn’t exactly think straight after that, Ol.”
“Bullshit. You haven’t been thinking straight for weeks now. You went way off the reservation long before that civilian turned up with your name Sharpie’d onto her body. I mean what the fuck, Sloane? When did you become the sort of person to get caught up in this shit?”
I know the answer to that question. I can pinpoint the moment exactly. It wasn’t when I made the decision to compromise myself in order to find out information about my sister. It wasn’t when I first met Zeth in that hotel room. Those moments changed me, sure, but I could have continued being the old me even through the trauma of that experience. No, I became the sort of person to lie, steal, protect criminals, and flee law enforcement when Zeth pinned me up against a wall in a corridor in St. Peter’s and demanded I protect Lacey. To make sure she wasn’t sectioned. I became that person when he told me he was coming for me again in two days’ time…and I wanted him to.
“You don’t understand,” I whisper.
“No. You’re right. I don’t understand. I would if you actually talked to me.”
Talking to Oliver about this can only mean one thing for him; it would only drag him into this mess, and that’s the last thing I want for him. My career is ruined now. There’s no way I’m going to ruin his, too. “I’m sorry, Oliver. I just—I can’t. It wouldn’t be fair.”
“Fair to who?” he snaps. “Fair to you? Or fair to me? Because I’m the one watching cops cordon off your locker at work. I’m the one watching cops crawl all over your house, tearing it apart. I’m the one wondering where the hell you are right now, when I offered to protect you and you threw it back in my face.”
My cheeks are burning hot, stinging as though he’s just slapped me. “Oliver, I never threw it back in your face. I—”
“It doesn’t matter. None of it matters. We both know why you’re wherever you are right now instead of here at work. It’s because of that guy.”
“It’s far more complicated than that. It’s not about him. Not all of it.”
“Then tell me you’re not with him right now. Tell me you’re as far away from him as you can get.”
I don’t say anything. Oliver makes a sound of pure frustration on the other end of the phone. “Tell me you’re at least smart enough not to have developed serious feelings for this guy, Sloane. Please tell me that.”
My heart is hammering against my ribcage, and strangely, I feel I’m on the verge of tears. Again. He sounds so, so disappointed in me, and that hurts like hell, but I won’t lie to him about this. I won’t. “I can’t say that. I—I’m in love with him.”
A deathly silence forms. Maybe that’s why I hear the sound behind me. The soft, sharp inhalation of breath that lets me know someone’s standing in the doorway to my room.
A rush of horror ricochets around my body. Oh, fuck. Oh, no fucking way! I turn and there he is, silhouetted in the rectangle of light shining into the darkened room from the hallway beyond. He’s looked like this before, when he left me the first time, except he was facing the other way. He was leaving me behind; I thought I was never going to see him again, and I didn’t know his name. I hadn’t even seen his face. Now I can see his face, though, and he looks…he looks like he’s about to go on a killing spree.
“Then I guess there’s nothing more to say,” Oliver tells me quietly, but I’m barely paying attention anymore. I’m staring at the man in the doorway, who’s staring right back at me, with eyes so intense that I feel like I might catch fire.
“No,” I whisper. “There’s nothing more to say.”
Lacey’s sitting on the couch, knees tucked up underneath her chin. Jimmy Kimmel’s on the TV. She sits through hours of comedy show reruns when she’s especially low, which immediately puts me on edge when I see what she’s watching. She smiles brightly at me, though, which lessens the unease a little.
“Where’s Sloane?” she asks.
“She’s coming. Or at least she was,” I reply, not even bothering to hide my smirk. Lacey knows what I mean by that. She screws up her face, scowling at me.
“You’re disgusting.”
I pad over to the refrigerator and open it, looking inside. “Yes. Yes I am. But just so you know…so is Sloane.”
“Gross!” I duck behind the fridge door just in time to narrowly avoid a balled-up pair of socks that Lacey hurls at me. “You owe me a new phone, remember. You said you were going to get me one.”
Ahh, yeah, right. A new phone. I smashed her last one after I called Sloane’s mom and found out Charlie had been there. Men like me have a stash of cell phones dotted around the place, just in case. A burner for this. An emergency contact for that. I open a drawer in the kitchen and pull out the spare I’ve kept there for years. It’s old but it works. I toss it to her, and she catches it out of the air. “There. Don’t fucking turn it on, though. I need to replace the SIM first. I’ll get you another one today.”
Lacey pulls a face at the ancient piece of tech I’ve just given her. “This thing’s older than me. I could bludgeon someone to death with it, Zee.”
