Page 92 of The Darkest Chase
“My sister,” she says. “She’d drop everything for me.”
There’s warmth in her ragged voice, and I smile slightly. “I know that feeling.”
“You have siblings?”
“A brother. I lost him just as unexpectedly. So believe me when I say I do understand what you’re feeling right now.”
Until this past month, before Talia, I wouldn’t be able to tell a complete stranger something so personal.
Something about that girl changes the way I think.
The decisions I make.
It’s like I don’t want to ruin the misguided faith she has in me.
Miss Lewis’ sorrowful eyes search mine.
“How did you get over it? How do you move on?”
“I don’t know. That’s the hard part,” I say softly. “It’s different for everyone. Some days, I wonder if I’ll ever move on at all.”
Her lips curl in a bitter, understanding smile, and she looks away, rubbing at her nose. “You probably need to go, don’t you?”
“That depends,” I say, even as I ask myself what the hell I’m doing. “Do you need me to stay?”
It’s like that one question shatters her.
Suddenly, she’s crying again, curling over her untouched tea mug and bawling herself out with a broken, “…p-please. Please d-don’t leave me alone just yet…”
“Okay, Miss Lewis.” I reach across the table and cover her hand with mine. “I’m here, as long as you need me.”
I’m starting to wonder if I’m getting tunnel vision.
If I’ve gotten so wrapped up in this long, slow game with Xavier Arrendell and the Jacobins, in maintaining my cover in Redhaven, that I’ve forgotten what’s really important.
The human factor.
Sitting there for nearly half an hour, holding this stranger’s hand while she cries herself into an exhausted sleep.
For the first time in ages, I feel like a person. Not a hard, cold automaton stuffed into a uniform with a quiet rage.
Shit.
What happens if I do take down the Jacobins? If I get my justice for Jet?
What will I be after that?
What can I be?
It feels like the same question Ariana Lewis has been asking herself since the moment I told her Brian Newcomb was dead.
That grim realization that her life has a different purpose now, and she doesn’t know who she’ll be once her grieving is all said and done.
That weighs heavy on my mind as I politely excuse myself and head back into the expansive sunlit lobby later.
Janelle looks up from the front desk, pulling at her bobbed hair.
“You were up there for a while,” she says. “Is everything all right?”