Page 49 of The Darkest Chase

“Doesn’t seem like it happens often,” she points out.

“Usually, there’s no reason to.”

“Why is that?”

I stare at her.

I don’t answer.

I don’t have one I think she’d want, anyway.

So I just go back to setting up camp.

After another silence, Talia goes back to making those cute sounds of exertion while she works, ripping a few small sap-filled green branches off the trees around us.

I toss her my lighter, and by the time I’m done putting out the rest of our supplies, setting out Rolf’s food and water bowls, and spreading my sleeping bag, she’s got a good fire going.

When I pull out a long cord strung with over five hundred soda can tabs, though, she looks up from stealing my camp stove and blinks at me.

“What’s that for?”

“Security.” I start weaving the string through the trees around the clearing at about knee height, a foot out from the inner edge. “If someone gets too close, I’ll hear the tabs rattling. It’s not so loud that if we accidentally hit it, it’ll alert anyone far away to our presence.”

She nods briskly, then her face falls.

She’s remembered what we’re really here for.

And she’s much quieter as she finishes setting the fire, putting our dinner on to cook while I line the clearing with the string of tabs.

Sunset comes fast out here in the hills, and by the time we’re parked around the fire with bowls of soup and warm bread, it’s already getting dark.

The circle of sky over us blooms in pink and purple layers. When was the last time I let myself enjoy a sunset?

Hell, enjoy anything, honestly.

Between police work and private grievances with the Arrendells and looking after Rolf, there hasn’t been much time for a life.

Have I become obsessed?

Is there nothing left besides destroying Xavier Arrendell?

I remember having friends in my twenties.

I remember learning how to mix drinks, whipping them up with a flourish and enjoying people’s reactions to my concoctions. I was younger then, more innocent, high on escaping from my father and being my own man.

I still had Jet. Not in the way I have him now, watching me from the trees on black wings and driving me madder than Edgar Allan Poe’s fictional tortured lover.

So why are you the one who’s still alive, Mikey, when you’re not really livin’ at all?

“Are you okay, Micah?”

I blink, focusing on Talia again.

She’s holding her little bowl in both hands, cupping it close to her face and sipping from it. Her eyes are dark with concern.

“Just thinking. Why?” I pin on an artificial smile that feels more like showing the teeth she’s so fascinated with.

“I can’t explain it. You just seemed kinda sad.”