Chapter 42
Nora slept soundly on the black velvet couch in Bridger’s office the sound of her shallow breathing mixing with the fire Vega must have started with a zap of lightning. The flame was as blue as the eyes staring at Bridger from the chair at his desk.
Vega had her bare feet tucked underneath her legs in a criss-cross, elbows resting on the desk with her chin resting in her palms.
“You really made yourself comfortable, didn’t you?” he asked. Bridger’s smile felt heavy as it slid across his lips.
“This chair is really great.” She bounced up and down a couple times, and maybe in her mind she thought it was showing the spring of the entirely too expensive chair, but after the long day Bridger had had, he couldn’t stop picturing her riding his—
“How many women have you fucked in this chair?” she asked.
Bridger choked on air. Had she known what he was thinking? The timing of that question was almost too perfect. “Vega.” He growled, but she was up with her hand over his mouth in a second.
“Shhhh. Nora is sleeping.” She gave him a playful look, her scarred eyebrow rising as high as it could go. Vega reached down and grabbed her socks. She slipped them on and then stepped into her battered boots.
He held the door open for her. “I think it’s time we get you a new pair of those.” There was no telling which life she’d been holding onto those since.
She paused, looking back at Nora. “I like these boots.” Nora was curled on her side with the blanket pulled up to her chin. “What happens when she wakes up alone?” Vega’s eyes twinkled with what Bridger knew was worry.
Nora was close to Halo’s age, give or take a year, and Vega had been right—the boy was smitten.
If only Bridger knew now what he’d known at twenty when he was just a young man in love with a girl… He would have killed Marlena before she had the chance to ruin everyone’s lives.
“I’ll send a guard to stand outside the door and bring her to you when she wakes. Come on.” Bridger let the door click shut quietly, leading them towards the end of the long hall where an elevator sat.
“You’re an expert at changing the subject,” Vega admitted, looking up at him as she kept pace beside him.
“Vega, we are not talking about my sex life.” He shook his head, pushing the Up button on the panel.
“Why not?” He felt her nerves spike.
“Because I can feel how uncomfortable it’s making you.” The door opened and Bridger stepped inside, turning around to face Vega, who hadn’t stepped through the open doors.
“It’s not the sex life that’s making me nervous. I’ve had plenty of it in the forty years we haven’t been together.”
Wrath bubbled in his stomach like it always did at the thought of someone else’s hands on Vega, but he bit it back, pressing it into the pit of his stomach so Vega wouldn’t catch the shift.
He had no right to feel this way—Bridger knew that, but self-awareness didn’t magically make it go away.
“It’s because I really don’t like elevators,” she admitted from the other side as the doors started to close.
Bridger stuck his arm out, sending the doors sliding back. “Since when?”
“Since I got stuck in one, had a panic attack where I blacked out, and learned the super hot dude I’d seen in dreams before’s name was Bridger.”
Bridger reached out and pulled her in, guiding her into his chest as he leaned against the wall.
“I’d love to hear more about this super hot dude…
” Vega slid her arms around his torso and rested her cheek against his chest, causing Bridger to pause.
He placed his chin on the top of her head, reaching across to hit the button for his floor.
“But I’d rather you tell me something real instead,” he finished.
“New or old?” she asked, not picking her head up as the elevator started its smooth descent.
“Whatever you’re willing to share.” He kissed the top of her head and pulled her in tight. It didn’t matter they both probably smelled like actual death or were crusted with blood… It mattered that they were getting this moment together—a tiny moment of peace they both deserved.
He felt her take a breath. “When I stabbed you after our kiss…” She peeked up at him with one eye.
When she saw no reaction other than a raised brow from Bridger, she continued.
“I told myself the kiss was nothing more than a momentary distraction, and in the moment it had been… but then it opened up these feelings. Feelings I hadn’t really had the chance to move through.
” Vega rested her chin on his chest, meeting his gaze.
Bridger pushed back the hair sticking to her forehead, not saying a word. He didn’t want to distract her.
“Feelings I called myself crazy for having about you.”
Keep going. Fuck, he wanted to hear her say what he knew she was thinking.
“I hated you, hated that you’d left me, or at least hated the way losing you made me feel… but you hated me too, right?” Her face didn’t look sad or hurt. The warmth was still in her eyes.
“I never hated you. I hated myself for the person I became without you around, and then eventually I hated myself so much I couldn’t look in the mirror and accept who I was.
So I put up shields, shields I wouldn’t have if it weren't for you, ironically.” He smirked down at her.
Vega’s disheveled clothing and hair brought him back to a place and time before the curse had ripped their lives to shreds.
“I disconnected myself from the person I’d become and felt only what I allowed myself to.
” He’d known then he would regret it for the rest of his life, but leaving her was the only option at that point.
“I let myself remember the bad moments, never the good. I had to make you into the villain of my story… like I was in yours… It was better than the pain of losing you.”
The bell dinged to the floor they would exit on, but when the door opened, neither of them moved.
“I had to lose you too. Over and over again, just like you lost me. Every time I got my memories back, I had to be reminded that the man I used to love, still loved in some lives, didn’t want me anymore,” she said, her voice close to a whisper.
“I can’t go through it again. Please, don’t make me go through it again. ”
The elevator door closed. “Let me make myself clear. I never stopped wanting you. I won’t make the same mistake twice.” Bridger trailed his thumb over Vega’s bottom lip. “It’s always been you, baby. I just lost myself there for a little bit… but you found me again.”
“I’ll always find you.” Vega closed her eyes and nuzzled her cheek into Bridger’s open palm. “In this life and all those that follow.” When her eyes opened, her lashes fluttered over her dirty cheeks. “I knew you were in there somewhere.”
The door to the elevator opened, and a stunned soldier stood on the other side. “Oh… Commander,” the woman stuttered. “I’m s-sorry.”
Vega’s smile was mischievous as she pushed herself off Bridger. “Handsy one, he is.” She winked at the soldier and sauntered off the elevator.
Bridger squeezed by the girl. “Carry on.” He didn’t wait to see if the level three soldier actually got on the elevator or not because he was too busy catching up to Vega, who walked down the hall as if she’d been here a million times.
They walked side by side, passing a few bedroom doors as they continued to the end of the hall where it branched off into a T. At both ends were bathrooms with showers and changing rooms.
“Lost?” Bridger asked, his crooked smirk pulling at the side visible to Vega.
He didn’t wait to hear her response. “Bathrooms on both ends of the hall.” He pointed to them and then nodded behind him where they’d come from.
“My room is at the other end.” A room he would really love to get Vega in right about now.
Instead of waiting for Bridger to lead, Vega stomped her feet down the hall in the opposite direction. “You could have stopped me.”
Bridger watched her for a second, chuckling to himself.
The voice in his head told her he didn’t deserve a second chance with Vega, but the part of him that believed he’d suffered enough let himself, if only for the time being, believe this was the light at the end of his tunnel.
“You seemed to know where you were going. I didn’t want to interrupt. ”
Except, there couldn’t be a light at the end of the tunnel. Not when Vega’s soul belonged to the underworld—belonged to Pluto.
I’ll find a way to save her.
There were a thousand different ways he could say he was sorry, a million ways he could beg Vega to forgive him, but none of those would mean anything if she wasn’t going to make it to the end to see his promises through.
Vega slowed when she got to the end of the hall. Bridger slipped around her and opened the door at the very end, letting her slip inside before he closed it behind them. It automatically locked, the light flicking on at Bridger’s presence.
Nothing had changed. It looked exactly as it had when he’d left. The plush mattress on the boring metal frame in the corner of the room was made with pillows piled high.
He watched Vega scan the place, running her fingers over the dresser as she looked at the blandness of the room. Compared to the decadent office he spent most of his time in, Bridger’s bedroom held almost no personality.
He let Vega wander. When she got to the desk, she thumbed through the pages of whatever report he’d left out, then opened a drawer.
She’d find nothing more than a couple pens, a pad of paper, and a corkscrew to open the bottles of wine he left stored on the shelf above his desk.
Vega turned around, leaning against the desk. She crossed one foot over the other. “I have to tell you something before we do… whatever it is that’s about to happen between us.”
Bridger raised a brow. “Okay.” There was no telling where this was about to go.