Chapter 26
I have been looking for him for so long.
So long I can’t think of a time when I wasn’t anymore. So long I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t the lion’s share of what keeps me going.
I can’t fucking remember. I can’t remember my life before this. Before him.
I can’t remember what it was like not to feel this unending, all-consuming determination. This single-minded, relentless pursuit of the one thing I believe might bring me peace.
Hell, that might just let me sleep.
This has to be what helps me breathe again. It has to, because I don’t know what I’ll do if it doesn’t. I don’t have anything else.
If I do this, will the other stuff come back? The good things? It’ll probably hurt if they do. But I’m already hurtin’, so what does it matter?
I can hear his voice from here. I thought he would sound different. Bigger. Tougher. Meaner. I thought he would sound like my nightmares.
He’s asking for another drink but the bartender is shaking his head while my hands are shaking beneath the bar, my own drink untouched because I want to be clear-headed. Because I want to remember this.
He asks again but the bartender waves him off before turning his back on him, and I watch as the thief waits less than a minute before pinching the bottle from behind the counter and heading toward the door with a sway in his step.
I thought he would look different, too. Bigger. Tougher. Meaner. I thought he would look like the devil. But he doesn’t.
He’s just a man.
“You know who I am?” I ask him, still trembling as I aim my gun at him.
He sits against the decaying wall of the deserted building I followed him into, and I hate the sound of the door clicking closed behind me, wondering if I’ll make it back out.
Wondering if I want to. “You remember what you did?”
He laughs, a hollow and whiskey-soaked sound. “Out past your bedtime, ain’t you, son?” He takes another swig as he eyes my weapon. “Put that thing away and go on home. Your mama’s probably calling.”
It’s like a punch to the gut. A twist of a blade that I only drive deeper as I step forward, my hand no longer shaking. “She isn’t.”