It’s clarifying.
I’m not going to kill her.
I’m not.
But I don’t know what the fuck Iamgoing to do.
I find myself outside her door at three a.m.
I don’t remember walking here. One second, I was standing at the window, watching the lights of the city blur through exhaustion, and the next I’m in this hallway with my hand on the doorknob and no idea how long I’ve been standing here. Like time has been whisked from my memory.
This is bad,I think distantly.This is really fucking bad.
I can hear her breathing on the other side. Slow and steady—she’s asleep. Or pretending to be. With her, I can’t tell anymore.
Go back to bed.
I don’t move.
She’s a spy. An assassin. She was sent to evaluate you. To decide if you needed to be shot like a rabid dog.
I know.
She doesn’t care about you. Everything was fake.
I know.
Then why are you standing outside her door in the middle of the night like some lovesick teenager?
I don’t have an answer for that.
My hand drops from the knob. I force myself to turn around, to walk back to my bedroom, to lie down on sheets that still smell faintly of her from before everything went to shit.
I don’t sleep.
The morning comes, grey and cold and wet with rain. I’ve been up all night, leaving briefly at four a.m. to assist the police in stopping a high-speed chase in Newark, before coming back here to revel in my discontent.
I shower, trim my beard, dress, make coffee I don’t drink. Check my watch—no other urgent alerts, no crisis requiring Vanguard’s attention. The city is quiet for now.
Good. You have work to do.
I make breakfast. Eggs, toast, fruit. Enough for two.
When I unlock her door, she’s already awake, sitting on the edge of the bed in my too-big clothes, watching me with those big dark eyes that see too much.
That have always seen too much.
“Breakfast,” I say, setting the tray on the dresser.
She doesn’t move, doesn’t even look at it.
“You need to eat,” I tell her, hoping she doesn’t pull this hunger strike shit again.
“Why? So I’m healthy enough for whatever you’ve got planned?”
“So you don’t pass the fuck out when I’m trying to have a conversation with you.”
Her mouth twists. “Is that what we’re doing? Having conversations?”
