The maze had been designed as our last practical assignment of the year. It was created to simulate the most challenging real-world situations that we might possibly face. It tested our critical thinking and our ability to make lightning-speed decisions while under huge amounts of stress. It was a complex network of intense situations we were supposed to navigate through completely blind. No one was meant to know what we were going to face: simulated hostage situations, hidden dangers, surprise attacks. Chaos, flashing lights, explosions, screaming civilians. Rooms that seemed impossible to escape, pop-up targets you only had seconds to fire at, and tiny, claustrophobic crawl spaces. It was the final, most important test of our training. A test that I’d been obsessively preparing for. A test that required skill and nerve and focus because you never knew what to expect around the next corner . . .
Except Cam knew.
‘I didn’t use it, I swear,’ he said. ‘I thought about it. I was going to, and then I didn’t.’
I lowered the paper and glared at him. ‘You didn’t use this?’
‘No. I didn’t.’ He was shaking his head frantically.
‘You honestly expect me to believe that?’ My voice rose an octave. ‘That you didn’t use this fucking map that shows you everything? God, it even shows the armed gunman holding a hostage behind the shop counter . . . theonething I didn’t notice!’
That had been my only mistake. And because of that mistake, Cam had won. This final task had meant absolutely everything to me. And winning it meant a fast-track into the detective programme – the one thing I wanted more than anything in the world. It meant your first choice of precinct, and you were always given the best training officer and treated with respect. And Cam had taken all that away from me.
I gripped the map so tightly that my knuckles started turning white and my fingertips began to sting.
‘Where the hell did you get this?’
Cam dropped his head and my stomach plummeted. Because in that moment, it all clicked into place.
‘Oh my God.Hegave it to you, didn’t he?’
Cam’s eyes met mine. His silence was louder than any verbal admission.
‘The lieutenant. He gave it to you.’
Still Cam didn’t speak. He didn’t need to. I could see it written all over his face. The lieutenant had hated me from day one. And he’d certainly never wanted me to win. In fact, all he’d ever wanted was to see me fail. No matter how hard I worked, how much I broke myself into pieces just to prove that I was meant to be there, it was never enough. To him, this was and always would be a boys’ club. One I wasn’t invited to. I didn’t know what was worse, that Cam had used this, or that he’d collaborated with my enemy.
‘I hope it was worth it.’ And then came a tear. A fucking tear. I blinked, pissed off that my body had betrayed me in the worst possible way. I never cried. I didn’t allow myself to cry. I refused to be vulnerable and weak.
But here I was. Crying.
And I hated Cam for it.
I hated myself even more.
‘Lizzy,’ Cam said softly.
‘Don’t. Don’t you dare call me that again.’
‘I didn’t. I swear I didn’t.’ He looked physically sick.
Slowly, deliberately, I crushed the map in my fist. It made a loud crackling sound, the sound of our relationship ending. I didn’t think, I just threw the ball of paper at him. It hit his chest and fell to the floor between us. We both looked down at it.
A discarded scrap. A piece of nothing. Just like us.
It lay there waiting to be picked up and thrown away. Just like whatever this thing between Cam and me had been. Because whatever had existed between us was dead. And just like that crumpled-up piece of paper, it would be tossed away.
It wasn’t just the paper she scrunched up and threw away that night; it was us too.
I let her walk away. Not because I didn’t love her, but because I knew I’d already lost her. Because once Lizzy had slammed the door in your face, you couldn’t reopen it. It had taken me years just to be granted a tiny peek behind that door, but now it had been slammed again, and it was all my fault. And this time, she was probably going to double-bolt all the locks, throw away the key and brick up a wall behind it for extra measure.
It was over. Before it had even begun.
CHAPTER 21
‘Caught you – again,’ Cam said. His arm had snaked around my waist, and in one impossibly swift motion he’d pulled me up before I’d fallen.How did he manage to move like that?
But he’d always been like this, so physical and capable and annoyingly good at almost everything. And me? I’d had to fight for what I had. Always needing to work harder, be faster, better, just to prove to everyone that I deserved to be there and could hold my own. As a woman in a man’s world, you were automatically underestimated. Cam had known this, had known how hard I’d fought just to be seen as an equal, and he’d still betrayed me.
