The Killer's Kitten

05 After that night

She sat up, the blanket slipping to her waist. She stared at the back of his head.

"After s*x you say this?"

He didn't turn around.

"You pull me out of a parking lot with blood on your hands, kill a men, put me in your car, spend the night in a motel with me—and the first thing you say is ‘you should leave.’" Her voice was steady but barely. "That's what I am to you?"

"I'm always this way." He fastened his cuffs, picked up his jacket from the chair. "This is what I do. I don't—" He stopped. Whatever he'd been about to say, he swallowed it. He walked to the door. His hand paused on the knob. "You're better off without me."

"Don't tell me what I'm better off with." She pulled her shirt from the floor, yanked it over her head. By the time she wrenched it down, he'd already opened the door a crack. "You don't get to decide that. You don't get to—" Her voice cracked. She hated that it cracked. "You don't get to hold me all night and then tell me to leave before the sun is even up."

He didn't answer. His hand was still on the knob, his back still to her.

"Look at me."

He didn't.

"Look at me, Vincent."

He turned. His face was unreadable, but his jaw was tight—the only sign that anything she was saying was landing.

"Am I a w***e or something?"

His eyes sharpened. "You're not." He released the handle, stepped closer, seized her wrist—just tight enough that she couldn't pull free. "But I can't protect you. My world will destroy you."

"I don't need your protection." She pulled her wrist out of his grip, grabbed her bag from the nightstand. Her back to him. Her shoulders were strung tight. "You're pushing me away for my own good—that's your decision. You never asked me what I wanted."

"You don't know what you're asking for."

"Then tell me."

Silence.

"Tell me, Vincent. What am I asking for that's so terrible you have to push me out before I've even found my shoes?"

"You think you're tough." His voice came from behind her. A hand closed on her shoulder—not hard, but not gentle either—and turned her back to face him. "The man outside your building wasn't random. He came for me. Which means someone already knows where I am. Someone already knows I was at your door." His grip on her shoulder tightened for half a second, then released. "One day, it could be you in the crosshairs. Not because of who you are. Because of who I am."

She turned. The morning light cut him in two—half the man who'd buried his face in her shoulder last night, half the expressionless killer at the end of the hall.

"What? One day you'll shoot me?"

The color drained from his face.

"I'd sooner put a bullet in my own head." His voice had dropped to something almost inaudible. He didn't finish the sentence. He didn't need to.

Her tears fell. She didn't wipe them. She let him see.

"You'd rather put a bullet in your own head." Her voice was barely holding. "But you won't even look at me. You won't tell me why. You just stand there, telling me to leave, like last night meant nothing."

He opened his mouth. No sound came.

"That's what I thought."

She walked past him. Past that hand still suspended in the air. The door slammed behind her.

He stood in the silence. His hand was still in the air, fingers still curled around the shape of her wrist that was no longer there. He lowered it slowly. The room felt smaller without her in it. Quieter. He'd known this would happen. He'd known from the moment he'd let her bandage his arm in the motel, let her press her lips to the corner of his mouth, let her fall asleep in his bed. He'd known he would do this. Push. Destroy. Retreat. It was the only move he had. He'd been making it for thirty-five years.

The hallway was cold. The elevator didn't come. She stood there, back against the wall, sleeve stuffed into her mouth so no sound would escape.