Chapter Seventeen
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What in the world is wrong with me?
Azalea
Life might actually be meaningless.
It feels like I’ve been in a catatonic state since Monday.
Half awake. Half alive. Drifting from task to task and trying not to throw up along the way.
I haven’t heard from Junction since the failed attempt downtown, and that’s fine, because I’ve been too busy clearing Malcolm’s schedule this entire week to try and position him for another assassination effort anyway.
It’s Friday, the first day of May, hours after work has ended.
I’m sitting in my living room, feeling hollow and out of place.
I don’t know what to do with myself.
Every time I’ve bothered to check Malcolm’s location this past week, he’s been downtown. Tracing the streets. Pausing here and there, possibly to talk to people. I don’t know. I can’t comprehend it. I can’t figure him out. He’s spent four full days looking for my crystal heart.
Four.
At first, I suspected this was all part of a cruel scheme.
I thought maybe he saw me lose her, picked her up himself, and planned to return with her after grabbing lunch downtown the first day he left.
My head’s been so muddled lately that staged heroics like that would do a number on the last strands of my sense.
Now that I’ve watched his icon on my phone going up and down around 4th and Griffin from dawn till dusk, I’m less convinced it’s a ploy. He’s expending so much energy. Sacrificing so much time.
At this point if he does have staged heroics planned, there’s almost something commendable to say about his commitment to making them look this realistic. And if he doesn’t?
If he doesn’t have anything planned, what is he doing?
My little crystal heart is probably gone forever.
Closing my eyes, I curl up in a ball in the corner of my couch and try to survive that thought.
This is stupid.
It shouldn’t matter this much. She’s just a tiny trinket I got once upon a time. I don’t even remember where she came from. If she’s gone forever, I’ll be fine. I have to be. I have to be. I will be. I must be.
I’m…not sure how to be right now.
But I’ll figure it out.
I should get to bed. Even though it’s still early, I’ll need the extra stamina to shop in the morning, then I have to meal plan through the afternoon.
I just need to…stand…and move.
One at a time, my feet hit the floor, and I pull myself up.
Each heavy step feels harder than the last, and I hardly make it to my kitchen before acute pain stretches through my limbs.
Bracing myself on the counter, I swallow hard and fight the irrational torrent as it rips through my soul, pricking my eyes and closing my throat.
“Stupid,” I whisper, voice raw from the unique sensation of overpowering and useless grief. “You’re such an idiot.”
If I’d never agreed to lure Malcolm out to that alleyway, I wouldn’t have lost my crystal heart. This wouldn’t be happening. I wouldn’t feel like this. I’m just getting what I deserve for being willing to help take a life.
Because no matter how terrible Malcolm is, it’s not my job to mete out justice. I’m no better. I’m no less terrible.
I’m outside my jurisdiction, operating beyond my paygrade in a cesspool of hypocrisy.
This punishment of losing my comfort item is the wake-up call, the condemnation, the suck it up and be a better person. Or else.
Who even knows if Malcolm is as bad as I think he is? Maybe he’s not. Maybe he’s only so bad with me. And maybe—just maybe—it’s because I’m the one who deserves to suffer beneath his hand. Maybe he exists to bring justice against me.
After all, haven’t I always been bad? I can try and hide my dark soul in rivulets of white, but nothing is going to change how wrong I am.
Nothing will ever make me good enough.
I am, fundamentally, broken.
And, no matter how many rules I try to follow, that won’t change.
Before I can get a grip long enough to put myself to bed, my doorbell rings, drawing my vacant attention past my living room toward it. I can’t remember anything I’m expecting, and it’s a bit late for visitors. Assuming I ever have any, when I don’t.
Yet, someone knocks.
Then someone calls, “Dove?”
My heart lurches.
Malcolm tries the handle, finds it locked, and rings the doorbell again, calling louder, “Darling? Are you home, sweet dove?”
Fighting for stability, I brush my hands down my dress, feel the fabric of my skirt, and realize I’ve already taken my gloves off for the day.
Still.
If he’s here…now…then…
Is there a chance?
Could this mean…
Has he really brought my crystal heart home?
Shaking, I head to my front door and open it.
Imposing and dark, Malcolm beams at me in the hall. Then, he lifts the tiny clear gem. Voice warm, he says, “I found her.”
My soul quivers.
“Someone did pick her up, but I found them.”
“You…” I breathe.
“I’ve been going all over downtown, talking to everyone I’ve passed, trying to figure out who may have seen her.
Finally, it occurred to me I should also stop in with the shop owners, since they’re the most consistent people traversing through the area, so this evening, I went from store to store on the street we walked, then from store to store on the street over.
And, what do you know? There’s a record shop whose owner lives in an apartment above the salon.
He walks through the alley we were in on his way to work, and he picked her up the morning after we watched the sunset.
She was right there, on the counter, when I walked in. ” He holds her out in his palm. “Here.”
Lips parted, I stare at her lying there against his bare skin.
His head tilts, and he looks at the clear stone. “Ah.” He reaches into his pocket with his free hand and pulls out his gloves. “Guess we’re not there yet. One mome—”
Hands bare, I reach carefully forward as a tear slips from my eye.
He freezes.
His fingers twitch when the tip of my nail skims his palm. His throat bobs as I draw my hands together and hold my crystal heart to my chest.
“Your hands,” he whispers, staring straight at my fingers. “I’ve never seen them…before.” He presses his lips together, wets them, takes a determined step back. “I hope this makes you feel better. Sleep well tonight, little dove.” With that, and nothing else, he turns away.
Stunned, I step from my apartment, feel the change in the floor beneath my feet, and jerk back inside. “Wait,” I blurt.
Malcolm stops, but he doesn’t look back. “Yes?”
“You found her.”
His head dips. “I did.”
“You found her, after days and days of looking, yet you’re just giving her back?”
His hands close, and he turns his head, so I can see his profile. His eyes remain focused on the wall beside him, squarely off me. “Would you prefer I ask you to grovel for her?”
I wince. “Obviously not. It just seems out of character for you to do something this…kind. Without any further expectation.” Hardening myself, I say, “You spent four full days looking for her. I saw you walking all over every time I looked at your location on my phone. At least give me a hint of what you expect in return.”
His lips tug upward until an awful smile paints his face in wicked shades.
At last, his gaze drags off the baseboards to pierce me.
“You want to know what I expect, huh?” He swings himself back around and pockets a hand.
“How about…a heart for a heart?” He presses a finger to his chest. “Mine’s lonely without yours beside it. ”
For reasons unknown, I flush.
His lashes lower, and he stares, fixated, before pressing his closed hand to his lips. His own cheeks darken until he’s a portrait of deranged adoration laced in insanity. “I love you.”
My stomach twists—or possibly it flutters.
“Don’t think I haven’t noticed how much that little thing means to you.
You’ve not been sleeping for days, and you’ve barely been lucid during the spare moments we’ve crossed paths when I’ve had to stop in at the office for meetings you couldn’t reschedule.
Playing with you is no fun when you’re not present to play with.
” He takes a step forward. Then another.
And another. Stopping in front of me again, he lifts his bare skin a centimeter from my face.
Index finger curled an inch below my chin, he says, “I expect you to rest tonight, wake relieved and refreshed tomorrow, and respond to my good morning text for once. Then, if you’re feeling especially grateful, maybe come see a movie with me after your meal prepping is done. ”
Painfully aware how close he is to touching me, I echo, “A movie?”
“If you’d rather not go to a theater, my place has a private one.”
His place. Right above our heads.
“We can watch anything you’d like.”
He’s under my flesh, invading my bloodstream, and I don’t know what to do about it. Not at all. Stepping back and away from his almost-touch, I say, “I’ll think about it and let you know in the morning.”
He returns his hand to his pocket. “Torment me with the anticipation, then.” He scans me from head to toe, letting his gaze linger an extra moment on my bare hands. “You’re okay?”
I’m holding something his bare skin touched against my bare skin. But I get the feeling his question has nothing to do with that. I say, “Yes.”
Sincere, he smiles, and the corners of his warm gray eyes crinkle. “Good.”
I breathe past the weak flutter of my heart in my chest. “Thank you.”
He lifts a shoulder, turning again. “I’d do anything for you, dove. You don’t even need to say a word. Just look helpless and see how fast I bend over backward in an effort to fix it.”
“You…actually care about me, don’t you?”
“Care is certainly one word you could use. Perhaps the weakest, though.”
“I don’t understand you,” I whisper.
He tuts. “I know. And I like it that way. Make no mistake, Azalea. Everything I do serves my own purposes. I’m not vying for peace between us, and you certainly won’t catch me chasing something as meager as affection. Not now. Not after coming this far already.”
“What are you trying to obtain?”
He chuckles. “Where’s the fun in telling you that?”
Deflating—because of course it wouldn’t be that easy—I watch him walk away.