Page 34 of Into Pitch

Something cold and heavy blankets me, and I recognize it as protectiveness.

It settles into my bones without permission, instinctive and immediate. The urge to locate these men, to catalogue their failures, and then remove them from this world as if they are a disease consumes me.

The thought is so natural it barely registers as aberrant.

I shove it down for now, not because it is wrong, but because it’s premature. What I want to do will take time and plans. Plans I can’t sort through with her in my office.

“How does it feel to say their names out loud?” I ask, trying to do my damn job.

“Not harmless, but less powerful, I guess.” She shrugs.

“That’s what naming does,” I tell her. “It gives shape to something that’s been allowed to live unchecked in your mind. You didn’t fix anything today, Sadie, but you stopped pretending it was nothing. And that’s how work actually begins. You have made excellent steps recently to step forward to the starting line.”

I watch the tension drain from her shoulders at the praise, and I slap the part of me that wants to preen at the relief she finds in it.

“We’ll take this slowly with no details, unless you choose them. Today was about acknowledgement, Sadie, not excavation.”

Quit saying her fucking name.

“Okay,” she breathes.

I stand, signaling the end of the session, and she follows suit after a moment. As she slips her jacket back on, her bracelet glints beneath the cuff. I barely conceal my grin to find it there and the dangerous satisfaction that curls low in my gut.

I hold the door open so she has to brush past me and my mouth twitches at the soft scent of her soap as it fills my senses.

Fuck it.

The plan has got to move a lot faster, because I’m a patient man, but even I have my limitations.

She leaves my office unaware of the shift she’s triggered, unaware of the direction my thoughts have begun to take.

That’s fine.

Just a few more days.

For now, I have names.

I don’t expect to see him here.

That’s the first thing my brain supplies when I round the corner near the food court with a paper bag of art supplies tucked under my arm, and nearly collide with a wall of black wool and long limbs.

I stop short, breath catching, and then let my eyes lift.

Oh.

Oh.

Alexander Dormsworth stands a few inches away, turned slightly to the side, one hand loosely hooked into the pocket of his coat as he scans the environment like he isn’t a man who knows exactly where he’s going at all times. He looks different in the wild.

Not unrecognizable by any means, he still carries himself with the same quiet confidence and composed stillness that makes him feel like the calm eye of a storm. But without the office and the controlled environment, there’s something more striking about him.

He’s dressed simply in a dark coat over a fitted sweater beneath it. Jeans that sit low on his hips and fit him far too well for someone who spends his days listening to people talk about their trauma. His black hair is neatly styled but not severe, the kind of effortless order that suggests he doesn’t have to try very hard. And when he turns after I’ve all but bulldozed him, his eyes catch mine.

Christ.

The man is unfairly good looking with all sharp and intense angles, especially in normal-people clothes. His icy blue gaze locks onto me and I still once I realize I’ve become the center of his awareness. The mall noise dulls into a low hum and everything blurs into background.

His mouth curves, just slightly and I curse myself for finding that attractive.