17. Darkest Spaces （Talia）

17

DARKEST SPACES (TALIA)

I can't believe he's doing this.

Making us complete strangers again.

No, maybe worse, because the man who revived me that day in the square was someone who smiled, someone who treated me gently, someone who—

Who definitely wasn't this cold.

He wasn't this strange, walled-off creature standing in front of me, feeling like he's a thousand miles away.

One silvery-blue eye watches me over his shoulder—icy, remote. No feeling at all.

And he's asking me to say the words that will crush me.

My heart is flipping pulp.

My lungs, collapsing sacks.

I breathe in and out slowly, counting one-two, one-two, until that awful tightness eases.

I don't even think it's an asthma attack.

It's just my heart breaking like a shattered iceberg.

"Micah, I…" I falter, digging my fingers into the straps of my bag. "What am I supposed to say? You're talking to me like I'm your employee. Like we never…"

Yeah, I can't say it.

"We never should have." He turns away from me again. His back is an impenetrable wall. "I'm not who you think I am, Talia."

I press my lips together.

I want to scream at him, but I'm trying to stay calm, stay rational.

"If this is about your past, your family, or even killing Xavier, I don't care! I know those things about you. I know. And I know there's a part of you that's afraid you really are capable of killing a man. And maybe you will. Maybe it wouldn't even be wrong after what Xavier and the Jacobins did to your brother, but… but that doesn't change you . I know you, and you're so convinced you'll ruin me that you don't even realize you're ruining yourself."

He doesn't say anything. Every second feels like a spike slowly piercing my skin.

His head bows.

His hand curls against the back of the barstool.

His grip is white-knuckled, bone and blue veins against ash skin, tendons standing out harshly.

Rolf flops down at his feet and looks up at his master with a pitiful whine, but for once Micah doesn't answer that plea.

Finally, his cold, emotionless voice emerges. "I'm with the DEA."

"You're—what?" I take a step backward. It doesn't make sense. I shake my head. "I don't understand. How are you Redhaven police and DEA?"

"Because I'm not really Redhaven PD. Not that anyone here knows it. Not even the chief, when he was under suspicion as well. I had to slip in completely unknown. Even my employment records in New York were replaced with falsified records with the NYPD." He delivers the news so flatly it's like he's briefing someone on a case, but every fact stomps on my heart. "I only came here on a mission. Now that I have what I need, the DEA will run a sting operation and I'll be leaving. I was never meant to stay here permanently."

"Oh."

It's the only thing that gets past my numb lips while my mind whirls so fast it makes me dizzy. At first, I'm just trying to take it in, to understand, to fit the pieces together.

It just feels like I've been looking through a window all this time, not realizing it was smudged and tinted, and what I thought I saw through it wasn't real.

But now the dirt is washed away, letting me see clearly.

What's on the other side looks completely alien.

And in that glass, I see my reflection.

I'm an idiot.

I'm a fool.

I'm in fucking love, and it's the dumbest thing I've ever done in my life.

"Y-you…" My voice chokes off. "You used me. You used me, you seduced me so I'd do what you want, and now that you've got what you wanted, you're tossing me aside. Because I'm not useful anymore. That's what it's been all this time. While I was so—"

I don't stop because I want to, but because a heaving sob rips up my throat and strangles me.

Clasping a hand over my mouth, I try to shove it back in.

Micah turns into a blur, this silent, untouchable ice prince who was never truly in my reach.

It's like he really isn't human after all, and our worlds were never meant to mingle.

Through the bleary haze, I can just make out his head turning toward me, watching me over his shoulder. I can't see his expression through the tears clouding my eyes, no matter how I try to blink and cling to some kind of dignity in front of him.

"You should take your grandfather," he says tonelessly. "Take your money and get out of town for a few days. Maybe head to Raleigh to discuss his treatment plans. I don't know how this will go down or how fast the DEA will move, but if Xavier figures out you took the camera before we have him in custody, I'm not certain I can protect you."

"Protect me?" I bite off. "What makes you think Xavier's the one I need protecting from? Xavier isn't the one who…"

Who shattered me.

Who made me realize how na?ve I really am and then broke my innocence into a thousand cutting pieces.

Before Micah, I never believed people could be horrible.

Now, I know how wrong I was.

Trusting people, trusting men, trusting anything… it just gets you killed.

Again, he doesn't say anything. I'm reminded that I'm in his domain, an intruder, and he's waiting for me to show myself the door.

However I thought it would end between us, it wasn't like this.

I wipe at my eyes, dashing away the tears so I can see clearly—maybe for the first time in my life. So I can see the stranger in front of me, this stonehearted DEA agent who used me like a tissue. This man I thought I knew, when all I ever knew was his name—and even that might not be the truth.

"I love you." Somehow, I can say it, even though it tastes like acid. " Loved . I loved who I thought you were. I loved the time we spent together. I loved the way you kissed me. The way you listened, leaned on me, and the way I thought you needed me as much as I needed you. I loved that you didn't try to hold me back from opening up my world, from seeing new things, from standing on my own, but you were always there to hold me up whenever I started to tumble and fall." My throat closes.

My lips tremble.

I watch his chest heave like there's an explosion inside him trying to get out.

Good. He should hurt a little.

Everything inside me burns, but at least my lungs aren't failing, finding the breath to speak these words that break so much inside me.

"I fell in love with a lie. The way you'd watch me when I tried new things and how you'd smile like you were seeing it for the first time with me… It made me feel special, Micah. It made every first for me so much more. And now…"

Oh, no.

My voice breaks again. Another sob, but I won't let it out.

I stuff it back inside, taking a deep breath and stiffening my spine.

Micah's not looking at me. His head is turned over his shoulder, but his eyes are downcast, his face blank.

"Now I know it was an act," I force out. "While I was falling in love with you, you were playing me for everything I was worth." I know why they call it bitterness now. Because the tears in my mouth and the pain on my tongue all taste revolting. "I hope you had fun breaking the little small-town virgin girl. You'll never get another chance to do it again."

If I'm expecting an answer, it never comes.

Just Rolf's whine as he pads toward me with his tongue out and sad eyes. Like he's the one begging me to reconsider.

Micah just waits.

And I can't anymore.

I can't wait any longer for him to take it back, to make it better, when I know he won't and I don't know how he can .

So I turn away, staring at the sun streaming through the tall windows of this cosmopolitan house that doesn't belong in Redhaven any more than he does.

I know what time it is—I run .

With all the strength I've built in my broken lungs and broken body, I run away from Micah Ainsley.

And I refuse to ever look back.