Page 196 of His Reckoning

“It’s just … too close,” I say finally.

Dean waits. “Close how?”

I push off the counter and start pacing. “I don’t know. It’s just?—”

“Specific?” he presses.

“Yes.”

“Like what?”

I stop. That’s exactly where the problem is. I can’t explain it without opening something I’ve spent years keeping shut.

“Forget it,” I mutter.

Dean doesn’t let it go. “No, don’t do that. You called me.”

I drag a hand through my hair. “She crossed a line.”

“I believe you,” he says. “If it feels like a line got crossed, then it probably did.”

The tension in my chest loosens slightly, but only slightly.

“But I need more than that,” he continues. “Because right now, it sounds like she wrote a character inspired by you, not exposed you.”

I force a breath through my nose. “You don’t get it.”

“Then explain it to me.”

“I can’t.”

The words come out harsher than I meant them to.

Dean pauses. “Why not?”

Because if I explain it—if I say it out loud—it becomes real. It becomes something someone else knows.

“I just can’t,” I say flatly.

Silence stretches across the line.

Dean’s voice shifts to something more serious. “Okay.”

I frown slightly. “Okay?”

“Yeah,” he says. “Then I’m coming over.”

“That’s not necessary.”

“Yeah, it is.”

“I said I’m fine.”

“Bullshit,” he says immediately.

“Dean—”

“You don’t call me like this and then shut down halfway through,” he cuts in. “I’ll be there in twenty.”