Thirty-Three
Scarlett
Ihaveto remind myself to breathe - remind my heart to beat-Emily Brontë
“This wasn’tpart of the deal.”
I’m at Booker’s throat the minute he walks in the door. He tells the other agent- the one watching over me- to take a hike.
“If I’d told you, you wouldn’t have agreed,” he replies. “We need to keep you safe, Scarlett. And this is the only way.”
“I can take care of myself.”
“I know you’d like to believe that. But do you honestly think there is anything Alexander wouldn’t do to get to you?” he asks. “Now that he knows.”
“How can he know? There aren’t even any charges yet.”
He drops a file onto the table in front of me. A thick file.
When I open it up, I am confronted with the level of Alexander’s sick obsession with me. There are photos… so many photos. And notes. Handwritten notes detailing my routines, searching for potential patterns, names of the men that I trick rolled, and worst of all- his own observations. His thoughts on why I do what I do. Meandering sentences with question marks scribbled beside them.
He doesn’t just want me.
He wants into my psyche.
“These are copies,” I say.
“Yes, I have the originals,” Booker answers.
“And how did you get them?”
He arches a brow and doesn’t answer this time. Because he won’t incriminate himself. And because if the bureau knew that he had this sort of evidence in his possession and he didn’t come forward with it, they’d have his ass.
“How can you be sure these were the only copies?” I ask.
“They weren’t,” he says. “I have the others as well.”
I forget that he’s been watching Alexander. That this is some sort of weird fucked up circle where Alex is stalking me and Booker is stalking him.
“So now Alexander knows and I’m the one who has to be a prisoner.”
“You have a roof over your head,” Booker says. “Food, clothes, everything you could possibly need. It’s only until the trial is over.”
“So when does it even fucking begin?”
Booker sighs, and I am not a pleasant bitch to be around right now. It’s been this way since Rory left, and I blame him, because it’s easy and he’s in front of me.
“There are a lot of different factors involved,” he explains. “It can take anywhere from months… to sometimes… longer.”
“Longer than months. So you mean years then?” I laugh and it’s bitter. “I’m just supposed to sit here and twiddle my goddamn thumbs for, oh I don’t know… potentially years… and you can’t even guarantee that we have a solid case. I’ll be in hiding while they are free on bail. So they win, again, either way. They always fucking win.”
Booker is silent, and I hate me right now too, and he should probably just leave already.
“Has my name been leaked to the media yet?”
“Not yet,” he says. “And as long as you stay in hiding, we can keep it that way.”
I should be relieved. But I’m thinking about Rory, seeing those articles and piecing it together in that stupidly beautiful head of his. He would know then, what I did. And it would still be too late, but at least he would know.
