Page 10 of Run Like the Devil

“Is it truly eavesdropping if you were talking to me in the first place?”

“You just love to twist things to make yourself right.” Even though her words chastised me, her tone lacked any true censure. “Do you have any idea how much pain I was in?”

I shook my head. “I believed you would rebound quickly. I was certain you would feel some guilt, since you have always been soft-hearted, but I thought it would only take a few days to move past it.”

She peered over at me, her expression dubious. It was strange to think she still truly didn’t understand. After everything we had been through, did she still think she didn’t matter to me?

Then again, Loch was a stubborn woman. She excelled at failing to see anything she didn’t wish to see, at believing the world was whatever suited her fancy at that moment.

“You really don’t get it,” she whispered.

Her words, so similar to what I had been thinking, surprised me. “What do you mean?”

“You don’t have any idea how hurt I was, do you?”

“You would have gotten over it. Time heals all wounds, or at least removes the memories so the wounds no longer hurt. If I had stayed out of your life, I knew you would recover. Any guilt you felt would drift away and you would move on. So I kept my distance, giving you that time. When I saw you had gone to the grave, I risked it. I didn’t expect to see you still so bothered.”

“Then you’re a fucking idiot,” she snapped. “I was drowning. I barely left my room for a month afterward. I closed my eyes never wanting them to open again, praying to a God I knew didn’t give a fuck about me to let the darkness swallow me up. I actually thought if that happened, maybe I could follow you and see you again somewhere.”

Her words sliced into me, worse because I could hear the truth in them. Had I been so wrong? I’d expected some sadness—mostly due to guilt—but the depths of her agony shocked me.

How could I so misunderstand things? Had she truly suffered that deeply?

One look into her face told me the truth of it.

I wanted to reach out, but I stopped myself. Somehow, I didn’t feel as if I had a right to do so.

The moment of madness I’d felt when I’d slept with her, when I had allowed my passions to take me, to blind me to reason, that had retreated and now I had my impeccable good sense again.

I had no right to touch her.

She sighed, as if she read my thoughts, and turned her back on me. “You really are an idiot.”

At the moment, I struggled to deny her claim.

Instead, I went to the well, peering into the familiar surface, the place where I had spent too many hours before. “You’ve done well here.”

“I don’t know about that.”

“You have. Well, other than allowing a stuffed animal to hear petitioners for a while, at least.”

She lifted one of her eyebrows. “Was that a joke?”

“Of course not. I don’t joke.” While my words came out deadpan, she smiled, telling me she heard the truth beneath it.

And it warmed me, made me feel as if we still had some connection between us, some understanding.

“You even managed to survive Azael.”

“Only because someone helped me.”

“Kylie only did so because of you. She would never have shown herself in that way if it wasn’t for your influence, for what you had done and risked. Do not take that lightly—she has run and hidden and avoided her past and her truth for a very long time. Her stepping up when she did was nothing short of a miracle.”

Which again reminded me of the true strength Loch had.

She changed others. She led not by force or power or manipulation, but by behaving in such a pure way, others had to face their own truths.

She altered each person she came into contact with—me included.

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