The line goes dead.
I stand in the dark for a long moment with the phone in my hand and the silence pressing in around me and I think about the first time I realized this was bigger than both of us. The first time I understood that the deal I made wasn't a lifeline, it was a leash. And the person holding the other end of it has never once had any intention of letting go.
Headlights slice through the trees.
She doesn't bother to cut the engine. She never does, like she is always one decision away from leaving and wants the option ready. Fiona Williams steps out of the car and walks toward me with the particular posture of a woman who has never once in her life been afraid of the dark. I have always found that either admirable or deeply sinister depending on the night.
Tonight it's sinister.
“Kellan.” Clipped. Impatient. “Tell me you have something I can use.”
“I have Toren.”
Something moves behind her eyes. Hunger, maybe. Or the closest thing to it that a woman like her allows herself to feel. “Where is she?”
I almost smile. “You may have me by the balls but I am not handing her location to anyone. Not even you. Especially not you.”
She studies me for a long moment in a way that always makes me feel like she is reading something written on the inside of my skull. Then she produces a folder and holds it out between us like a peace offering that is anything but.
“The names in those files are still being watched,” she says quietly. Quiet is always worse with Fiona. Quiet means she has already decided. “Closely. If anyone moves against the terms of the deal struck with the former leader of the Saints, they godown. All of them. No exceptions. No second chances.” Her eyes don't waver. “Are we clear?”
I take the folder.
I don't answer.
I drive home in the dark with it sitting on the passenger, not opening it because I already know what's inside. I requested every page of it. I've known what it contains for weeks and I've been waiting for the right moment, the right hand-off, the right way to make sure it reaches the only person I trust to know what to do with it.
These files aren't for me.
They were never for me.
I have that feeling again, the one that lives low in the chest and refuses to be reasoned with, the quiet and persistent certainty of a man who has learned to listen to his instincts because they have kept him alive in situations that should have ended him. The feeling that tells me I am running out of time. That the threads are pulling tighter. That something is circling.
That the ending I've been outrunning is nearly here.
I think about her.
I think about the way she looked at me before I made myself impossible to look at. The way she saw through me anyway, every single time, without even trying. She knows me too well. She always has. That was the problem and the gift, the one thing I couldn't afford to let her do because, if she had seen through me clearly enough, she would have understood what I was carrying and she would have tried to carry it with me.
I couldn't let that happen.
So I was cruel. Specifically and deliberately cruel, in the way you can only be cruel to someone you're terrified of losing. I pushed her into his arms without meaning to. I kept her at arm's length and let her believe it was indifference and I have replayed every moment of it since and I would do it again. I would choose her safety over her opinion of me every single time without hesitation.
That's the part I never got to tell her.
Toren.
If you're reading this then I didn't make it and I need you to know that every cold word, every turned back, every moment you thought I didn't care, it was all a lie. The realest thing I have ever done in my life was to love you quietly from a distance because it was the only way I knew how to keep you breathing.
Trust no one who hasn't already bled for you.
And Toren, watch your back. The person you least expect is standing closest.
I'm sorry I couldn't be the one standing beside you.
I'm sorry I didn't stop the car.
I'm sorry for all of it.
