Page 27 of Cruel Daddy Dragon

Sarah closes her notepad and pockets it.

“Thanks for your help.”

With that, she starts to leave.

“Wait!” I shout suddenly.

She looks over at me.

“Is… is that it?” I ask.

“That’s all the questions I had to ask about the ring,” Sarah replies in a monotone.

“I’m not talking about the ring!” I snap, “I’m talking about last night!”

Sarah just gives me a tight, polite smile.

“I don’t know if it’s professional for me to talk about last night while I’m working,” she answers.

“So, you’re not… we’re not going to talk about it?”

“I’m not talking about that right now,” she replies in that same heartbreakingly cordial tone.

She’s smiling at me, but it feels like a dagger to the heart. I struggle to find the words. I can’t find it in me to beg for her attention when she’s so dispassionately smiling at me like that. I preferred it when she was arguing with me; at least there was some fire there. I just… I didn’t know Icouldjust be brushed aside for professionalism after last night…

I thought it was too special for that… but there’snothingthere from her… like it didn’t even happen, or worse, it didn’t even matter.

Is that how much I’m worth to her?

“Wh—where are you looking? For the relics you talked to Kaius about?” I ask instead, only a stutter revealing the dagger in my heart.

Again, she speaks in pure, heartbreaking professionalism:

“Roscoe seems to have found a small crack into a cave or an abandoned mining shaft, and he’s storing a lot of his stolen goods there,” she says, “It needs spelunking gear, at least. I can’t guarantee that there are any relics there, but I suspect that there might be.”

“Let me come with you,” I say, “Spelunking will be safer with more than one person.”

“No,” she answers blankly, “I’ll be accompanied by locals, and this is a police investigation. You don’t need to come.”

Sarah turns and starts walking away. She pauses for just a moment, then looks over my shoulder with something approximating softness in her eye for the first time since I saw her today.

“You don’t need to worry about me either,” she adds.

With that, she leaves the house. The door clicks closed behind her, and I just stare at it for a moment.

That’s it? But I… I thought that we… that I…

The dagger in my heart turns, and I swallow hard.

“Wow…” Kaius mutters behind me.

I spin on my heel, a prickling shame bursting into rage when I realize that jackass could have been watching the whole time.

“Don’t say a word!” I snarl to Kaius, “Don’t say a fucking word!”

But he holds his hands up, his eyes serious.

“Yeah, Bro, I get you,” he says simply, “Are you okay?”

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