Page 93 of Cold Mercy

Daughter, daughter, full of fear, mommy’s ghost is standing here. Pour the drink and break the vow. Look at who you’re becoming now.

By evening, I can’t stand it anymore. The thought that I ruined the one thing in my life that finally felt like healing makes me feel sick. I hate myself for how easily my mind slides backward, how quickly that darkness reminds me it’s still there. How weak I am.

So I do what I shouldn’t. I grab my keys, take my bag, and drive to New York with my hands trembling on the wheel. I can’t look at myself in the mirror. I can’t stand the exhaustion in my own eyes. Maybe this is who I am. Too broken to hold anything good without cracking it. Perhaps I’m not built to be loved in any way that isn’t complicated or painful.

I park behind my bar, step out into the cold night, and walk inside with one intention. To silence the noise in my head. I want them quiet. Just quiet enough so I can breathe without feeling like my mind is trying to drag me under. I hate this escape. I hate that I’m running to the same poison I despised in my mother.

Kill the girl, let her die, say your final, last goodbye. We aren't evil, we aren't wrong. We are just where you belong.

CHAPTER 22

THOMAS

I don’t know when the hours slipped by. One moment it’s late afternoon, the parking lot empty, and I'm still sitting in the same damn spot. Engine off, seat leaned back, her pocket watch turning over and over in my hand like some kind of confession I’m too much of a coward to say out loud.

I didn’t move because I knew the second I left this place, I’d have to choose.

And whichever direction I went, she wouldn’t be in it.

Grace was right. Even in the best version of this twisted crossroads, even in the dream where I fight, run, burn everything down to stay by her side…

I still end up nowhere near her.

I didn't walk out because I didn't want her touch. God knows her hands on my skin are the only thing that makes my life feel real. I walked out because the weight of the lies is becoming unbearable. Because some part of me still believes she deserves a man she can actually get to know. Not the ghost of a badge, not a lie, not a man whose entire existence is an assignment.

And sitting here, I’m furious at myself. At how easily she made me forget the job.

Forget the version of Thomas I built from stone just to survive.

She made me feel human again, and I don’t know how to live with that.

I spent years believing numbness was a skill, not a wound. If you don’t feel, you don’t break. That's what I told myself every time someone left, every time my brother fell deeper into his own hell, and every time my mother looked at me like I reminded her of everything we've been through.

And then she walked into my life and ruined the whole damn system. For the first time, I wanted something for myself. A future that didn’t look like an empty apartment and a badge on the counter. A life where someone saw me and didn’t flinch. A life where I didn’t have to be the son of a man I hated or the officer who did everything for the job, and ended with nothing. She made me want to believe I could be more.

Her texts don’t help, because I can’t give her what she wants. I want to walk back into her house, take her face in my hands, tell her she didn’t do a damn thing wrong, but I can’t. Not without blowing up everything.

My phone starts ringing. I stare at the screen, debating whether to answer, because if I hear her voice, I might break before tomorrow even comes.

I pick up anyway.

“Hiiii, pretty boy.”

Her sweet, completely unguarded voice hits me with the force of a punch.

Jesus Christ.

“Sophia?”

“Mhm?” she teases.

“Have you been drinking?”

I already know the answer. I can hear the noise, the music, and the way she drags every vowel like she’s melting into the receiver.

“Maaaybe.” She giggles. “I just wanted to tell you your behavior today was very, very mean. Extremely un-nice, and I don’t know what you’re going to do to earn my forgiveness.” She laughs again, lightly, like she’s teasing me on purpose.

I set the phone down for a second and inhale through my teeth, trying to stop myself from driving a fist through the steering wheel.