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I thought she was different. I thought she was somebody I could let into my life, have a real conversation with, and trust to stay by my side.
I replay everything she’s ever said in my mind. I imagine her smile, and the way she subtly deflects praise. I hear how she humbly refuses to talk about her own accomplishments and past.
If she can walk away in spite of everything she’s said, how she’s acted, and what she represents to me, did I ever really know her at all?
Taking a stale goddess heart out of my pantry, I sit down on a hard chair and begin to nibble through the pastry. It has lost its crispness as my teeth pierce through its once flaky outer crust, and the sugar has become dry and artificial tasting.
But it’s still better than anything else I have in the house.
I look at the door to find that I’m still alone. I’m not sure what I expected. Maybe, in my own irrational mind, I figured that pulling out the goddess hearts might somehow summon her here.
“Fuck it,” I say. “I’m tired of stewing.”
Stepping into the bedroom and opening the cabinet, I pull out my work files.
Maybe I hate this case and I hate having to do it, but at least it could get my mind off of her. Sitting back to the table and nibbling on the stale goddess hearts, I move my finger over the documents, hoping to spark some sort of inspiration.
I glean surface level observations. Names, people, locations. No matter how many times I see the images of the victims, or their schedules before their deaths and times of death, or the key locations relevant to them, I’m not able to figure out anything I don’t already know.
“The killer is probably well-versed in traveling and xaphan observation,” I say aloud. “They had some tie to the xaphan, which might point toward a human.”
I shrug. “Or it could be political-based. The victims all held positions of power. Perhaps it was done to escalate a conflict, or to serve ulterior motives.”
I shake my head.
None of it makes any sense. There doesn’t seem to be any rational motive for the murders, or at least not one that I can see. What could they have possibly hoped I’d find out that they didn’t already know? I’m not an investigator. I’m just a hardened soldier.
And then my thoughts turn to her. Sweet, innocent her.
She makes my heart melt, and as much as I pore over all of these documents, my mind just keeps returning to her.
I imagine her cherry lips as they reveal her teeth, and she bites down on her lower lip in astonishment. I imagine her eyes that light up like amber, and the way her perfectly coiffed black hair falls down over her shoulders.
Would my mother have liked Elia if I brought her home to her? Would she have made my time in the city any easier? And would she have gone to Bilgonith with me if I’d asked, after my time here is up?
All this to say, my thoughts bring a very hard truth to reality.
I think I was in love with Elia? It’s hard to know for certain, but something in my gut aches in a way it never has before. I even think over the people I lost in war and how much it hurt, and it doesn’t hurt like this does.
I have to sequester her away in a corner of my mind and never return to it. I can’t keep giving her power over me.
No matter how much she apologizes for this, I can’t forgive her. I can’t let her hurt me again.
For me to return to any sense of normalcy… if I want to seize the remnants of my life back from her… I need to be mean. Maybe I can get back to focusing on this case… put this doomed tryst out of my mind for a bit.
That’s if my damned mind will just let me focus.
I flip over a photo in frustration, then sigh and look up at the ceiling.
If this is what dealing with grief feels like for just a few hours, how am I going to bear this weight forever?
“What are you working on?”
I nearly topple over in my chair, catching myself on one leg.
Looking just over my shoulder, Vylco peers down at the documents on the table, his sage red eyes glowing in the dim light of the room.
I want to ask him how, with my infinite training, he still managed to sneak up on me. I want to ask him why he’s okay with just entering somebody’s house completely uninvited.
