Page 45 of Into Pitch

It doesn’t take long before I’m pulling up to the dive bar she works in, parking my car and sliding out into the night. My gaze flicks to the sign that signifies the bar is closed, despite the lights that frame the inside of it.

She thinks she is safe here and that she can confront me through a screen and keep danger contained.

She is wrong.

And I suspect—if she’s as honest as she pretends she isn’t—she knows she’s wrong too.

Her message wasn’t a warning, but a very clear invitation.

I see you.

Fine, now she gets to see all of me.

And this time, I won’t bother with wearing a mask.

I’m reaching for the lock when the door pushes inward on me. I stumble back, cold air sweeping in behind the shape that fills the doorway, my entire body locking up before I backpedal to place distance between us.

“So close,” Alex hums calmly, stepping inside and pulling the door shut behind him. The sound of the lock clicking into place lands like a gunshot in the empty bar.

Fuck, I had just came in to clean since I couldn’t paint or think after I had sent that message. I’m now realizing that maybe I should have locked my doors and prayed to god that the monster I suspected wasn’t the one I actually knew.

We’re alone.

The overhead lights are already dimmed, the place stripped down to its bones with chairs flipped onto tables and the bar top wiped clean from my nerves. The night outside presses against the poster covered windows, neon bleeding in from the signs of the other shops outside.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” I snarl—choosing violence.

He takes a few steps toward me, unhurried with his hands loose at his sides like he hasn’t just detonated my entire life by showing up here. Confirming a suspicion neither of us has brought attention to out loud yet, but I’m aware we are both thinking it. Loudly.

“You don’t get to walk in here,” I hiss, stalking toward him, rage pouring through me. “You don’t get to show up like nothing happened.”

“I never implied nothing happened,” he shrugs.

“You sat across from me and listened. You handled me—”

“Careful,” he murmurs.

“—and you had the nerve to let me talk about you.” I barrel on, voice shaking now. “You asked me about Plague and Pitch. About trauma you caused while pretending to help me process it!”

Why does the bastard look mildly amused?

“You figured it out,” he confirms without outright saying it.

I laugh, and the sound is even hysterical to my own ears. “Oh, you think?”

“You always would have, little fox. I was just waiting.”

“I’m not your fucking case study,” I spit, changing angles to hit him with.

“No, you’re not.” He agrees.

The way he says it so low and certain makes my pulse stumble. My hands fidget as I dare to take another step forward despite myself. “You’re sick. Do you have any idea how twisted it is to do what you did?”

“Yes.”

His answer is instant and unrepentant, it knocks the air from my lungs harder than any denial ever could.

“I didn’t come here to apologize,” he muses, gaze steady on mine. “I came because pretending there’s still distance between us is pointless.”