Page 58 of Inextricably Tied

“I should have done it differently. Said something else. Changed my tone. Should have just stopped her…but I didn’t. I knew when she was late coming home that night that something wasn’t… She was always late, but it was different. By the time I realized she’d gone to meet him…” Flint’s claws dig into his skin. “I barely made it to her before she was gone.”

Storm clouds hang on the horizon. Thunder rumbles. Harbinger’s legs are jelly. “You never told me that.”

He sucks in a breath. “I hate remembering it. For years after, my family was never the same. We splintered. I’m not proud of that point in my life.”

“Why?” Agony’s voice is soft. Flint closes his eyes again. There’s a pang at the memory playing out behind his eyelids.

“Because I killed him.”

Lightning flashes in the distance, but it feels like it strikes straight between them. Flint won’t look at her.

“He wasn’t hard to find. Or maybe it’s easier with enough motivation.”

Restrained rage boils inside of Harbinger, but she’s not sure what’s hers and what’s Flint’s. Agony’s the one to find words. “But he deserved it.”

“Maybe he did. But I didn’t do it for protection. I did it out of anger.” The tension in Flint’s shoulders finally sinks, like he can’t carry the weight any more. “It didn’t bring her back. It didn’t make me proud of myself.” His claws have left marks in his palms. His fingers flex as he stares at them. “It didn’t make me someone she would be proud of.”

That’s where Flint’s grief is. What hurts the most, fathomless and raw, a gaping wound Harbinger doesn’t realize sends tears slipping down her face.

“That’s why the OID warns you away from me.” Flint’s hands drop between his knees. “They were investigating him, a serial rapist. Sidi was his first murder. If they would’ve caught him sooner —” But Flint doesn’t let himself follow that thought, a path already worn down from constant travel. “They said they didn’t have enough evidence, so I used it against them. Didn’t leave anything they could pin to me. They know I did it. They just can’t prove it.”

He won’t look at her. Harbinger pulls off her gloves and reaches for him, pushing to teetering feet, the bare skin of her hand pressing into his. Feelings avalanche through their connection. She tries to keep her head above them, fingers curling in his sleeves, trying to pull him closer. His weight sinks down against the rock, jaw in her hands until he finally meets her gaze.

His eyes are dull, numb and glassy. She wishes she could take it all, that her power would let her bear the weight of his pain instead of just feel it.

“I never wanted to have to tell you…” His jaw clenches. “I didn’t want you to think of me like…”

Nothing she says will be right. I’m so sorry begs to slip off her tongue, but it won’t bring his sister back. Won’t leech away the guilt. Won’t withdraw all the swords left in him.

“None of it changes us, ok?” She smooths out the tension of his jaw with her fingers. “I need you to know that. We’re still partners. I still trust you. Shh, yes, I do. It doesn’t change how I feel about you.” Heat pricks behind her eyes. “I’m just…so sorry you didn’t feel like you could tell me. That you’ve been holding it all by yourself.”

Flint’s exhale is long and deep, like the first breath he’s truly taken. Harbinger’s thumbs stroke over his cheeks. “Is that why you didn’t want to take this case?”

His voice cracks. “They all look just like her.” A tear slips down beside his tusks, tracking through the dust on his cheeks. “They’ve barely lived. None of them were thinking about the end. None of them should have to. They should have…so much time left.”

Harbinger wraps around his neck, pulling him into her like it might protect him. They stay like that until his breathing evens, and he lifts his head enough to look at her.

“I can’t bring her back. I can’t bring any of them back. But I can protect you.” There’s pain in him she can’t understand, even as she feels it, a fear that makes it hard to breathe. “That’s why I’m here. Why I need you to stay safe, because I can’t…”

His head rests heavily against hers. One hand cups her cheek, his thumb brushing against her pulse, hectic and alive. “I can’t lose someone that important again. I can’t lose you.”

“You won’t.”

It chills her that it sounds like a lie. Because everything she’s done up to now, all the thoughtless situation she’s put them in, could have made a liar out of her. Could have hurtled Flint into danger they couldn’t find their way out of.

And she can’t imagine the gaping hole that losing him would leave in her.

Weary lines fade into his face. “It got to me more than I wanted to admit, the shooting at the restaurant.”

The shooting Harbinger led them into. The one Flint had to protect her from. Guilt twists in her stomach.

“I haven’t been dealing with it the way I should,” Flint murmurs. “I haven’t been dealing with it at all.”

“You don’t have to carry it all on your own. You can tell me when something’s eating at you, even if it’s just a feeling.” Harbinger swallows. “Even though I haven’t been very receptive to what worries you…”

Flint’s wet laugh breathes air into the space again, his palm smoothing down Harbinger’s back. Sand drifts over the cooling ground as her fingers drift through his hair.

“You never talked about Sidi before. Not even stories before it happened.”