Or love wrapped in survival because we’ve all fought monsters before bed.
That line hits me square in the solar plexus, knocking the air from my lungs. It’s too human. Too wounded. The kind of thing you say when you’ve bled for survival and wondered why you came out the other side alone.
I stare at the words until they blur, then whisper into the quiet, “Why me?”
My thumbs move to type the same words.
Eris:
Why me?
Locke:
Because you talk to me like I’m real.
Because you listen.
Because you haven’t run.
Eris:
I should.
Locke:
But you won’t.
I struggle to stop my eyes from rolling. This feels like a serious conversation, but I do wish I could explain that I’m not the type to run… Fight, yes. Shoot, also yes… But flee? No.
Eris:
Why won’t I?
Locke:
Because you’re just as addicted to this as I am.
I make a frustrated sound in the back of my throat and drop my phone onto the couch. My pulse slams against my ribs asirritation simmers within me. This is a mistake. I shouldn’t have said anything.
And I damn sure shouldn’tfeelanything.
But I fucking do.
And the longer I sit here, the more I realize how deep the hooks are. I’ve let the app into everything… My routine, my silence, my thoughts. It had access to my home, to me. And now all these fucking cameras.
I should have deleted it the moment I saw Jace at my door. That was enough of a sign to know whoever is behind the app is watching me closer than Daniel is… Because why send my most recent hookup?
Unless he’s connected too.
It’s not so farfetched, but it does feel like a different level of paranoia that I don’t normally succumb to.
I should rip the wires out of the walls, toss the cameras in a dumpster, and throw my phone in the river.
But the memory of Jace is too tangled in this mess for me to do anything brash. His hands, his voice, the heat between us.
He’d looked at me like he knew what the app said when no one else could.Like he was the app.And that thought really should scare me.
Instead, it intrigues me.
