Page 173 of The Darkest Chase

Talia and I aren’t the right mix.

“Get the check in your account. Look after your grandfather,” I finish, fixing my gaze on my computer and not on her, watching the progress bar fill up as the files download rapidly.

It feels like once that bar hits one hundred, something ends forever.

“You’ve done incredible work, and I’m grateful. It’s just that this case doesn’t involve you anymore.”

Talia’s soft, choked sound hits my back like a bullet.

“You’re dismissing me,” she says. “Just like that, you’re… you’re…”

“I’m telling you to stay out of a very dangerous situation that doesn’t need to worry you anymore. Thank you for your help, but I’ll take it from here.”

“Of course it concerns me! You concern me, you dick!”

“I shouldn’t.”

The silence after I say that rings like a death knell.

I don’t know what I’m doing besides busting apart.

I don’t know how to take it back.

Now that I started this, I have to finish it, instead of hurting her with weak deflections and weaker words.

I am a huge fucking dick.

That’s why I have zero business with a girl like her.

Her quiet turns into a storm as my ears sting and she sweeps toward me.

“How can you not concern me?” she asks. There’s so much emotion in her voice, it’s like she’s going to shatter when it overflows.

My heart shakes.

I don’t have an answer. No combination of words will ever be good enough.

I close my eyes, gripping the edge of the breakfast bar.

Just before my eyelids turn everything dark, that progress bar hits 100%, just a little final marker that tells me this is over and I have to stop this now.

Fucking now, while I’m back in my dark closet, safe from her tiny hand reaching inside me and tearing my heart out.

I know that isn’t it. I know she has more to say.

“You what, Talia?” I ask softly, and I know I’m going to crush her if she tells me, if she bares her heart to me that way. “What are you about to say?”

17

DARKEST SPACES (TALIA)

Ican’t believe he’s doing this.

Making us complete strangers again.

No, maybe worse, because the man who revived me that day in the square was someone who smiled, someone who treated me gently, someone who—

Who definitely wasn’t this cold.

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