Page 217 of Never Tell Lies

“I saidno.” The vehemence in my voice echoed into the night and brought this trained killer to a silent standstill. Ragethreatened to explode out of me but I swallowed it down just as I had done a thousand times. I slipped the fingers of my left hand under the cuff of my right shirt and stroked the blue ribbon tied there until the swirling rage pool in my belly began to slow. “No, Elliot. I’m going to be selfless for once in my life.”

She would survive without me, I had no doubt about that.

The only way out of this is in a body bag…

Nothing exists for you but me…

Remember the pain…

So many insidious things I’d said to bend her mind and keep her in this shadowed cage with me. I could never get it right. I wanted to be in the light with her, and I had been so fucking close. But she would survive without me. As for me, I could feel my soul withering, hardening back into the impenetrable stone it had been before I came to this tiny, unassuming town.

She had pried me open and found me dank and cold. She had spent many arduous hours rubbing sticks together to spark a flame, then weeks and months stoking the fire with gentle breaths, using her body to shelter it from my storms, cutting off her own hair to use as kindling every time I threatened to blow it out. It hurt. Ever since I met her, I could feel the heat of that flame inside me, warming me. Now, I was cooling again, ice settling deep inside.

It was right that I let her go, but the thought of never seeing her face again…and the world was so fucking dangerous out there…I could kill if I couldn’t see her face every day. Even if she wasn’t looking at me, even if her smiles were for someone else, I had to watch her brush her hair, turn her face up to the sky every time she stepped outside. I had to watch her pick through a blueberry muffin, bite her lip as she sketched some new fantasy.

I had to see her hair in the sunlight. The sway of her hips, the curve of her lips, her bright, all-seeing eyes. If I could keep seeing her, I could imagine her. Her lips on mine, her fingertipstrailing down my back, her scent on my skin—the scent of a hundred kinds of fruit, of the earth and outdoors.

I could imagine her laughter, light and breathy The way she said my name every morning, the first word out of her mouth…Alfie. I could imagine her moans and gentle cries in my ears. I could imagine her telling me she loved me, wearing a white dress and my ring on her finger, bearing my last name…no…me bearing hers. Alfie O’Connell had a much better ring to it than Lola Tell.

I could imagine her carrying my child, a child that she had chosen. I could imagine her old in my arms as we saw each other out of this world.

As long as I could see her every day, I could still dream.

What harm could it do her if I was a ghost in her life? No harm at all if she didn’t know I was there and with someone always watching, she would always be safe.

I turned to the man at my side, the grey man who had infiltrated terrorist cells and taken out gangsters, the man who had turned down MI5.

“Elliot, there’s something I need you to do for me.” The furrow in his brow deepened as I gave him his orders, but he knew better than to argue. I would keep to my word. I would never bother her again. I wouldn’t interfere as she moved on without me, but I would keep her safe, and in my dreams she would come to me.

In our Evergarden she would lie in my arms.

Ever mine.

My Lo.

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