Page 127 of Shatter

Desmond comes around the desk.

He doesn't hurry.

He walks to me slowly, across the little cold room, his shoes clicking on the concrete, and I can't move.

I've thought about this moment every night for nine months.

What I'd do.

What I'd say.

In my head, I always fought.

I stand there frozen while he stops in front of me, close enough I can see the fine threads in his tie.

"You've changed your hair." He reaches up and lifts a strand of copper off my shoulder, rolls it between his fingers, lets it fall. "I don't like it."

Then his hand slides around to the back of my neck.

Warm.

Dry.

His fingers find the hollows below my skull, exactly where they always did, and squeeze.

Not hard, only enough.

The room goes gray at the edges.

My knees lock, and my breath stops somewhere under my collarbones.

My skin goes cold and crawls.

Nineteen again, in his study, the door locked behind us.

Twenty-four again, on the terrace, with my father's laugh drifting out through the French doors.

I'm nothing, and I'm his.

"There she is." His thumb strokes once, slow, along the side of my throat. "There's my girl."

Hakon.

His hands on my hips in the garage, exactly where I put them.

His voice in my hair.

Your hands, I know where they'll go.

This hand isn't his.

The thought cuts through the gray like a knife through a curtain.

This hand isn't his, and it doesn't get to be.

My breath comes back all at once, ragged, and my hand goes to the front pocket of my hoodie.

"You want the drive." My voice shakes, but it comes out. "Let go of me, and you can have it."