The kind of connection I've wanted since I was seventeen and thought understanding someone meant they'd never leave.
"I can't," I whisper, though part of me wants to say yes.
"Why not?"
The question is simple, logical. It should have a simple answer. Instead, it opens something raw and infected inside me.
"Because I built this!" The words tear out of my throat like shrapnel. "I spent nine years becoming someone who mattered, someone who had power and authority and respect. Dr. Lila North isn't just a name—she's everything I am."
I'm out of the car before he can respond, my professional heels clicking against concrete as I pace in tight circles. "You think I can just walk away from that? Just throw away a decade of work because some psychopath wants to play games with our past?"
Kent gets out of the car too, moving with careful precision. "Lila—"
"No, you don't understand." I spin to face him, letting him see the fury that's been building beneath the professional mask. "You got to disappear once already. You got to choose anonymity over complications, got to walk away when things got messy. But I stayed. I rebuilt. I became something."
The accusation hits him like a physical blow, but I'm not done. Nine years of resentment is pouring out, all the careful control finally cracking under pressure.
"You don't get to show up now and ask me to throw it all away. You don't get to offer me escape when you already proved you'll abandon me the moment staying gets difficult."
"That's not—"
"Isn't it?" I move closer, letting him see the rage in my eyes. "You walked away because you thought I deserved better than your darkness. But I didn't want better, Kent. I wanted you. And when you left, I had to become someone who didn't need anyone, someone who couldn't be abandoned because she never let anyone close enough to matter."
My voice is rising, echoing off the parking garage walls. "Dr. Lila North is my armor. She's my weapon. She's proof that I survived what you did to me and became something stronger. You want me to just…discard that? Become a fugitive running from fake crimes while the real killer gets away with murdering my friend?"
"Lila—"
"No." The sound of my heels seems grating against concrete as I pace in tight circles. "You don't get to minimize this. You don't get to tell me it's not my fault when Casey's bodyis arranged on a morgue table because I chose to protect a killer over innocent lives."
Kent still moves closer, albeit with the careful precision of someone approaching a wounded animal. "You're right," he says quietly. "This is partially my fault. My work created the template someone's using to terrorize you. My presence in your life made you a target."
The acknowledgment should provide some satisfaction, some vindication for the guilt that's eating away at my chest. Instead, it just makes everything worse. Because now we're both carrying responsibility for Casey's death, both trapped by choices that seemed justified at the time.
"It doesn't matter whose fault it is," I say, my voice cracking with exhaustion. "She's still dead. And tomorrow they'll arrest me for obstruction of justice, and you'll disappear back into whatever anonymous life you built, and none of this will have meant anything."
"I'm not disappearing."
The words stop my pacing, force me to look at him directly. Kent's standing perfectly still, hands at his sides, dark eyes locked on mine with the kind of unwavering focus that used to make predators confess their sins.
"What?"
"I said I'm not disappearing. Not walking away, not abandoning you to clean up this mess alone." He takes a step closer, close enough that I can see the determination in his expression. "Whatever happens next, we face it together."
The promise hits deeper than comfort or reassurance, because it's exactly what I needed to hear nine years ago. That he would choose me over safety, choose us over the careful distance that kept him functional.
That he would stay, regardless of the consequences.
"You'll go to prison," I whisper. "If they connect Kent Shepherd to the Carver, if they discover you're still alive, you'll spend the rest of your life in a cell."
"Maybe. Or maybe we're smart enough to stay ahead of them, experienced enough to disappear when necessary." His hand finds my face, thumb brushing away tears I didn't realize I was shedding. "Either way, I'm not leaving you again."
The words break something fundamental in my resistance. All the professional armor, all the careful distance, all the walls I've built to protect myself from exactly this kind of vulnerability—none of it matters when faced with the simple reality that he's choosing to stay.
That he's finally choosing me.
I collapse against him, the fight draining from my body like blood from a fresh wound, leaving me raw and trembling in the dim, cavernous expanse of the parking garage. The fluorescent lights overhead hum with a low, incessant buzz, casting stark shadows across the concrete pillars and the cracked, oil-stained floor, their flickering glow painting us in shades of gray and menace. In this moment, the world contracts to the space between us—two predators bound by a shared history of violence and longing, finally acknowledging the chain that tethers us. His arms encircle me without hesitation, strong and unyielding, pulling me into the solid wall of his chest. I press my face into his shirt, inhaling deeply: the sharp, clean scent of sweat mingles with the faint, earthy tang of wood polish from the life he left behind, undercut by something darker, more primal—a metallic edge that recalls old blood, a ghost of the violence etched into his bones. My hands fist in the worn cotton of his shirt, knuckles whitening as I clutch at him, terror gripping methat if I let go, he’ll dissolve into the shadows like he did nine years ago, leaving me to rebuild alone.
But he doesn’t pull away. His hold tightens, one hand sliding up to cradle the back of my head, fingers threading through my hair with a possessiveness that sends a shiver racing down my spine, igniting a spark in my core. His other hand presses against the small of my back, anchoring me to him, and I can feel the heat of his skin through the thin fabric, the steady thrum of his pulse beneath my cheek. The relief of his choice—to stay, to stand beside me—crashes through me, but it twists into something sharper, hungrier, a storm of need that’s been festering for nine years. I tilt my head up, my lips finding his in a kiss that’s more collision than caress, a desperate clash of teeth and tongues that tastes of salt and fury. My tears smear against his mouth, stinging my lips, and he groans, low and guttural, his hands digging into my hips with bruising force, pulling me flush against him until I feel the rigid heat of his arousal pressing insistently against my stomach, a promise and a challenge.
