Page 61 of A Breath of Life
This subdued version rocked my foundation.
It’s your fucking fault. You did this. You ruined a good thing.
Was it the story I’d shared about my past or the obvious lie about how I’d discovered Clarence’s name that bothered him? Regardless, a chasm had opened between us, and I didn’t know how to fix it without breaking Ace’s fucking rules.
“Where’s your guy?” he finally asked when I didn’t speak.
“I don’t know.” I scanned the street. No Buren.
I spot-checked for Ace’s spy but couldn’t see him. He was out there. Watching. Waiting.
Tallus refocused on his phone and paced again, putting distance between us.
Gritting my teeth, I followed, riding his heels. If he noticed or was annoyed, he said nothing. Spilling my guts in the records room had only added stress to an already stressful situation. It usually took days to get over the rawness of exposure when I opened my personal Pandora’s Box of Past Traumas. Ordinarily, afterward, I required space to process. Time alone. A lot of liquor and at least one cigarette.
Not this time. I couldn’t risk space, but it meant the icing on top of the shit cake was getting too thick to digest.
One day, my past would frighten Tallus off for good. It was a matter of time. How much ugly could a person take before they decided it was too much? It was why I spoon-fed him sips, hoping to make what we had last as long as possible. Letting Tallus in meant surrendering the disguise I’d worn my entire adult life.
It was an act of trust.
Tallus stopped abruptly, and I nearly collided with him. He tucked his phone in a pocket and spun, meeting my gaze. Speculation and suspicion sat on the surface of his hazel eyes. After a beat and without warning, he moved into the fold of my arms and rested his head against my chest.
Unsure what I’d done to deserve a hug, I went with it. Relief threatened to buckle my knees. If he was hugging me, then he wasn’t as mad as I suspected. Faint hints of shampoo and hair gel drifted to my nose. Inhaling his calming essence, I squeezed my eyes closed and counted backward from ten.
I’m okay. This will all be okay.
Where the fuck was Buren? I wanted to get Tallus out of the open.
The bus stop where we typically met to conduct transactions was busy. People occupied the benches both inside and outside the shelter. Others lingered by the curb, staring blankly down the street likemindless drones going through their preprogrammed motions. No one spoke. Everyone carried a day’s worth of lethargy.
For the hundredth time in ten minutes, I scanned, looking for Ace’s associate. I was a fucking sleuth, goddammit. I did this for a living. Why couldn’t I locate him?
Echo sat obediently at my feet. She exhibited no signs of distress. Would she recognize a problem? Her training didn’t extend to uncovering potential threats. Although she had been the one to alert us to Clarence’s distress, and before I’d been clubbed over the head in the parking garage, she’d tried to warn me of the imminent danger.
Her lazy dog smile and relaxed demeanor suggested all was well.
Across the street, a man exited a restaurant. A wafting breeze of Mediterranean spices drifted from the open door. My stomach rumbled, reminding me I hadn’t eaten all day.
Tallus, whose ear was pressed against my chest, chuckled. “Are you hungry, Guns?”
“Those are grumbles of impatience.”
“No. The bear sounds different.”
“Where the fuck is Buren?”
Tallus lifted his head and peered along the bustling street in both directions before tipping his chin. “Is that him?”
“Fucking finally.”
I guided Tallus away from the busy bus stop as the TTC pulled to the curb and opened its doors with a sigh of air brakes.
Catching Buren’s eye, I indicated an unoccupied overhang outside a boarded-up storefront. It was an active time of day in downtown Toronto, but that was the point. Lots of people meant we would blend in. It also meant finding a stalker was akin to locating a needle in a haystack.
Buren looked like shit. His shirt and tie did nothing to hide his nighttime predilections. He wore scraggly facial hair, less a beard and more a sign of neglected self-care. The sclera of his eyes held a permanent spiderwebbing of flaming capillaries. If I didn’t know the guy was a coke addict, the constant sniffling would have given him away. He’d probably bumped a line the second his shift ended.
“You got my money?” he asked once upon us.
