8. Affection as a Weapon #3
“You think this is about what you can handle?” she whispers.
The words land too softly.
I have no answer.
Because, yes. Some part of me did think that. Some arrogant, protective, wolf-driven part of me that believes danger can be managed if I stand in front of it.
Fate sees the truth before I can bury it. She shakes her head once. “Of course.”
“That is not what I meant.”
“No. But maybe it is what you believe.”
She turns back to the board and pins a new note under AFFECTION AS WEAPON.
This one reads:
SECRECY AS DAMAGE
Her hand trembles before she lowers it.
Neither of us speaks.
The note sits there between us, accurate and merciless.
I look at it, then at her.
She looks at the board instead of me.
Trust strains in the silence, thin as red thread pulled too tight.
And the worst part is that both of us are still holding scissors.
The note stays between us.
SECRECY AS DAMAGE
Three words in Fate’s sharp handwriting, pinned beneath murder evidence as if trust itself has become part of the case.
I stare at it longer than I should. My jaw tightens.
The rain taps steadily against the sunroom glass. Around us, the supernatural murder board waits with all its red thread, photographs, herb names, grave dates, and warnings we are both refusing to fully explain.
This is what failure looks like, apparently.
Not raised voices. Not slammed doors. Just two people standing inches apart, both armed with partial truths and calling it protection.
“Secrecy keeps people alive,” Fate says.
“Actually, it’s what killed Romeo.”
“Really?” she says softly. “Now you’re a theater critic?”
“I'm just sayin'."
“Convenient,” she smirks before renewing her stance. “Because from where I’m standing, professional opinions seem to arrive right before you hide something in a laptop and walk out of my house without explanation.”
“I told you I had information I needed to verify.”
“And I told you that was not an answer.”
“It’s the only answer I can give right now.”
Her eyes flash. “Then stop asking for answers you’re not willing to offer.”
That lands clean.
Deserved.
Still, I cannot let go.
“Fate, if the curse is connected to the murders—”
“Do not say it like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like it’s a tidy category on your board. Like you can pin it next to prop access and toxicology and solve it by staring hard enough.”
“I solve things by putting them where I can see them.”
“And some things get worse when they are seen…or heard.”
The room goes still.
Not quiet.
Still.
The wards at the windows tighten like a held breath.
My warlock blood reacts first, recognizing pressure, old magic, a phrase that has weight beneath the surface. Fate realizes what she has said at the same moment I do.
Some things get worse when they are seen. The theater. The watching walls. The cemetery ears. The curse she will not name.
I lower my voice. “Is that what you found?”
She closes her eyes. For one second, she looks so tired it cuts through everything—anger, suspicion, fear, restraint. She looks like a woman carrying a town on her back and apologizing to the furniture for the inconvenience.
Then her eyes open. The mask is back, but thinner now. “I found enough to know that careless words matter.”
“Then use careful ones.”
Her mouth trembles before she controls it. “That is not fair.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.” Her voice breaks on the last word, not loudly, not dramatically. Worse. Honestly. “You think if I choose the right sentence, the right wording, the right little loophole, I can hand you everything without consequences. But what if the consequences are the point?”
I go still.
There it is.
Not the whole truth.
But the shape of it.
I look at the board again. AFFECTION AS WEAPON. TRUST AS ACCESS. SECRECY AS DAMAGE.
Every line is true.
That is the problem.
We are trapped between truths. She is right that some secrets can protect. I am right that secrets can kill. Neither fact cancels the other. Both stand in the room with us, loaded and waiting.
I pick up the file folder from the table.
Fate watches the movement, and I hate the fact that she does not ask me to stay.
Yesterday she would have challenged me. Needled me. Blocked the door with sarcasm and fox-bright fury until I either confessed or threatened arrest.
Today, she lets me gather the reports.
That hurts more than a fight.
“I need to get these to Kelly,” I say.
Her face does not change. “Of course.”
The words are polite. Empty. A stranger could have said them.
At the doorway, I stop.
“Fate.”
She looks at me then.
No joke. No shield. Just exhaustion, hurt, and something softer she is trying very hard to bury alive.
“I’ll be back,” I say.
Her smile is small and sad. “That sounds like a threat.”
“It’s a promise.”
For a heartbeat, the air between us warms.
Then the board rustles behind her though no wind moves through the room.
Both of us turn.
One red thread pinned between Mara and Caleb’s photo has loosened from its tack. It hangs downward, twisting slowly, the end pointing toward the blank space where Fate removed the word CURSE.
Fate goes pale.
The wards hum once. Low. Warning.
I reach for the thread.
“Don’t,” she says.
I stop.
Her voice is barely above a whisper. “Please.”
So I do not touch it.
That is the first crack.
Not in the case.
In us.
I leave without resolving anything.
And this time, Fate lets me go.