Page 108 of Cruel Lies

"Enlighten me."

"You built this cage. But now, now you're standing inside it with her, and you don't want to close the door, because closing the door means she's stuck in it, too." He pauses. "But the thing is already built, Ro.Youbuilt it. Sooner or later, somebody will close it. Then both youandher will lose everything.”

I close my eyes. He's not wrong. He's never wrong. That's what makes him worth keeping around and what makes him unbearable to talk to.

"A week," I say again.

"If that's what you want," he agrees dubiously. "I hope she's worth it. Because you're gambling with more than your own neck now. You know that."

He hangs up, leaving me marooned on the stoop with my dead phone in my hand.

Down the block, that dog barks once more, then gives up. I hear a light tinkling sound come through a distant window, and it makes me think about my mother sweeping up glass on her hands and knees, apologizing for a mess she didn't make.

Will you be here for pancakes in the morning?

I don't know how to be a man who says yes to that and also a man who does the things I must do to Cali and her children. I've spent my whole life believing I could hold two things in two hands and never let either one touch the other.

A man needs a code.

Lines he will not cross.

Well, I'm not sure anymore which line I'm standing on.

I let myself back into the house, quiet, and lock the door behind me.

I'm going to tell her. That's the only way.

I climb the stairs with that intention in mind.

I mean it this time. I've meant it before and talked myself out of it a dozen ways, but standing on that stoop with Navi's voice in my ear, I decided that I'm going to tell her what I am.

Not everything, maybe. Not the guns, not the men digging graves in the marshes. But enough. Enough that she knows, so that when the cage door closes—and Navi's right, it closes, one way or another—she doesn't look at me and see another Todd.

I get to her bedroom door with the words on my lips.There are some things you need to know about me, kotyonok.

It's cracked a few inches, warm light spilling out into the hall. I push it until it swings inward.

She's in the bed.

She meant to wait up. I can see it in how she's lying—on top of the covers, not under them, one arm flung out toward the empty side, still in the red dress with the zipper open down the back.

She fell asleep waiting for me.

Her face is soft. All the sharpness she wears in the daylight, all the armor, is gone. Her mouth is parted just slightly. Her hair is a beautiful disaster, fanned across the pillow. She looks, for once, like a woman who feels safe enough to let go in the dark.

I stand in the doorway and I don't wake her.

I could. It wouldn't be hard to sit on the edge of the bed and say her name and tell her everything. Maybe it would go the way I want, or maybe it wouldn't. But either way, my conscience would be clear, and she would be free to decide things for herself.

But she's asleep.

So I take it as a sign. It's a coward's move dressed up as mercy, but it's an easy thing to justify. I'm very good at that.

I ease the phone out of her hand and set it on the nightstand. I flip off the lamp. I stand in the dark until my eyes adjust, until I can see the rise and fall of her breathing.

Then I undress quietly and fold my clothes over the back of the chair in the corner—the chair I sat in all night the last time, watching over her. I don't sit in it tonight.

Tonight, I lift the edge of the covers and slide in beside her, careful not to wake her. She stirs anyway and turns toward me. Not fully awake, but some small part of her finding my warmth and moving toward it. Her hand lands on my chest. Her head tucks into my shoulder.