Page 28 of Till Death Do Us Part

“Is it because you don’t let people get close to you, or… is that just my wild imagination?”

“That’s the first of a few reasons. Second is because I’m a sexually domineering menace who likes to claim what’s mine in a way no one can keep up with. And third is because I kill people.”

“Oh, only three reasons. That’s not too bad.”

“I might not be the best cook, either.”

She laughed. Why was I joking and flirting with the girl I was about to kill?

Anything to help her let her guard down.

Or so I told myself.

We snuck down into the catacombs, where cold earth walls surrounded us, and eventually, we reached the hidden door: a compartment on the wall with an old book that clicked when I pulled it out, the wall groaning and sliding outwards. Elaine gasped next to me, pressing up against the wall, looking out with wide eyes at where the cold wind battered us.

Open cliffs. A narrow ledge. A long way down.

“Oh, wow,” she breathed. “Where does this go?”

“A bit of a hike… along the wall.” I was more fragile than normal. Normally I could swallow the fear and push through without showing anything. But everything this mission had been so far… I wasn’t doing my best. “Leads us to a depot where I can take a different car the last thirty minutes to the house. No chance of being tracked.”

Her gaze softened at me. “Vera…”

“I’m fine.”

She stepped closer to me, putting her hand on my arm. “We can stop here for a minute.”

“I’m fine,” I snapped. “I’m a trained professional! Just stop looking at me and let me do my job.”

She didn’t flinch. Her eyes were stern compassion. “Vera,” she whispered. “When you push on the hurt, the hurt pushes back on you. It’s okay. I’m here.”

“Shut up.” I choked the words out, not even recognizing the sound I made. Elaine brought out something in me I didn’t like. I covered my face. “Can we just fucking move?”

“We can go as slowly and carefully as you need. If we need to take breaks…”

“I get it.” I turned away, pushing out an angry breath as I turned to the cliff wall again, and I felt my stomach pitch, worse than before. It was dark now, too. The sun was setting in the opposite direction, a halo of gold at the top of the cliff walls and inky-black waves below.

The same two-tone twilight it had been when my mother had died.

“Fuck.” I collapsed against the wall. Elaine stepped close to me, her hand on my lower back. Right where I’d put mine on hers when we were confronting her mother.

“It’s okay,” she whispered.

“I just need… a couple of minutes.”

“Let’s sit down, okay?”

“I… all right.”

We sat on the packed-earth floor, breathing slowly. The cold floor helped ground me. Elaine’s hand caressing patterns on my back did, too.

“I don’t… get like this often,” I said quietly, leaning forwards. “Not even with heights. I’ve had someone hold a gun to the back of my head while I was half out of a helicopter before. Trying to get me to talk. I wasn’t this scared then.”

“Usually the fear isn’t as bad in the traumatizing incident itself as it is in the incidents that follow.”

I laughed hollowly. “That wasn’t the traumatizing incident. That was Tuesday.”

“You are… something else, Vera.”