Chapter 8 #3
“I need to ask you something,” Harper said around nine p.m., setting aside her laptop. “Earlier, at the station, when I suggested using myself as bait. You said you couldn’t watch me put myself in danger. Why?”
Silas kept his eyes on his screen. “You know why. Afghanistan. My team. I failed them.”
“But I’m not your team. I’m not your responsibility.”
He stared at the screen but had stopped seeing what was on it. “You’re my partner on this case—”
“That’s not what I’m asking.” Harper moved from the couch to sit beside him, close enough that their shoulders touched. “Silas. Look at me.”
He did. And saw understanding in her eyes, saw the question she was really asking. Why do you care so much? Why does it matter if I’m in danger?
“I don’t know,” Silas said honestly. “I don’t know why it matters so much. I just know that the thought of something happening to you, of failing to protect you, makes me feel like I’m back in that compound. Like I’m watching my team die all over again.”
“I’m not going to die.”
So confident. “You don’t know that.”
“Neither do you.” Harper’s hand found his again, but this time, her fingers threaded through his. “But we can’t live our lives avoiding risk because we’re afraid. We can’t stop doing the job because something might go wrong. That’s not living, Silas. That’s just surviving.”
“Surviving is underrated.” His heart was beating faster now, a tight sensation growing in his chest.
“No, it’s not. Surviving without living, without connecting, without taking chances—that’s just a different kind of death.
” Harper’s voice was small, soft. “I learned that after Michael died. I spent six months surviving—hiding in this cabin, avoiding people, trying to make myself small enough that the world wouldn’t notice me.
And you know what? It didn’t work. The killer still found me. Women still died. And I was miserable.”
Silas hadn’t stopped looking at their joined hands. Tried to remember the last time he’d held someone’s hand like this, with intention and meaning. Maybe never. Maybe he’d been surviving so long he’d forgotten what living looked like.
“I’m scared,” he admitted quietly. “Scared of failing you. Scared of making the wrong call. Scared that I’ll let you walk into danger and won’t be fast enough to save you.”
“I’m scared too. Scared of the killer, scared of becoming his masterpiece, scared that I’ll freeze up at the wrong moment and get someone else killed.” Harper squeezed his hand. “But we’re scared together. And that’s better than being scared alone.”
They sat like that, hands clasped, shoulders touching. The cabin was quiet except for the ticking clock and the wind outside. Silas became acutely aware of Harper’s warmth beside him, the rise and fall of her breathing, the way her thumb brushed unconsciously across his knuckles.
He should let go. Should put distance between them before this became something neither of them was ready for. But he couldn’t make himself move.
“Silas,” Harper said softly.
He turned his head, found her face inches from his. Saw the question in her eyes, the vulnerability. Felt his own pulse quicken.
This was a bad idea. This was crossing a line they shouldn’t cross. She was a consultant, he was the lead detective, they were in the middle of an active case hunting a serial killer who was obsessed with her. This was every kind of wrong.
But God, he wanted to kiss her. Wanted to close that last bit of distance, feel her lips against his, lose himself in something other than fear and guilt and the weight of responsibility.
Harper leaned in slightly, her breath warm against his face. “We shouldn’t,” she whispered.
“No. We shouldn’t,” Silas agreed.
Neither of them moved away.
Silas’s free hand came up, cupped her face. His thumb brushed across her cheekbone. Harper’s eyes fluttered closed, and he heard her breath catch.
Kiss her, his brain demanded. Just kiss her and deal with the consequences later.
But even as he thought it, images flashed through his mind. Williams dying in the rubble. Michael Ward in that warehouse explosion. Nicole Merrin on the ground with symbols carved into her skin, looking just like Harper.
Everyone he got close to got hurt. That was the pattern. That was the curse.
If he kissed Harper now, if he let this become something more than professional partnership, he’d doom her. The universe would take her away the way it took everyone else. The killer would win. She’d die.
And it would be his fault.
Silas pulled back abruptly, dropping his hand from her face, untangling his fingers from hers. “We can’t do this.”
Harper’s eyes opened, confusion and hurt flickering across her features. “Silas—”
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—” He stood, putting distance between them. “You’re right. We shouldn’t. This is unprofessional. Dangerous. We’re in the middle of a case, you’re a target, I’m supposed to be protecting you, not—”
“Not what?” Harper stood too, her voice sharper now. “Not caring about me? Not letting yourself feel something? Not being human?”
“Not putting you in more danger than you’re already in,” he snapped.
Silas glimpsed the hurt in her eyes before it was quickly masked, and ran his hands through his hair, frustrated.
“Harper, everyone I get close to gets hurt,” he explained—again.
“My team in Afghanistan. Partners I’ve tried to work with. Everyone. I’m not doing that to you.”
“That’s not how it works—”
“Isn’t it? Look at the pattern. Look at my history. People around me die, Harper. That’s just a fact.” He forced himself to meet her eyes. “So yeah, we can’t do this. Whatever this is. Because I will not be responsible for getting you killed too.”
Harper stared at him for a long moment. Then she shook her head. “You’re being irrational. Superstitious. Bad things happening in your past doesn’t mean—”
“Doesn’t it? Michael died because you made a call that went wrong. My team died because I made a call that went wrong. That’s not superstition. That’s cause and effect. That’s pattern recognition.” Silas’s voice was harder than he intended. “And I’m not letting it happen again. Not with you.”
The words hung between them, brutal and final.
Harper’s expression closed off. “Fine. If that’s how you feel.” With sharp movements, she grabbed her laptop, tucking it under her arm. “I’m going to bed. We’ll talk about the tactical setup for tomorrow in the morning.”
“Harper—”
“Good night, Detective Kane.”
Her words slapped harder than he would have thought possible.
She disappeared into her bedroom, the door closing firmly behind her.
Silas stood alone in the living room, staring after her, hating himself. He’d hurt her. Pushed her away. Made her feel rejected when all she’d wanted was connection, was comfort, was something good in the middle of all this darkness.
But he’d done the right thing, he told himself. He’d protected her from himself, from the curse he carried, from the inevitable disaster that came with getting close to him.
Even if it felt like he’d just made the worst mistake of his life.
Silas grabbed his own laptop and headed to the guest room. He had tactical plans to make for tomorrow, backup to coordinate, a trap to set for a serial killer.
He couldn’t afford to be distracted by what-ifs and almost-kisses and the memory of Harper’s face so close to his, her breath warm against his skin, her eyes asking a question he desperately wanted to answer.
Work. Focus on the work. Keep her alive. Catch the killer.
Everything else was just noise.
But as Silas lay in bed hours later, staring at the ceiling, he couldn’t stop thinking about the hurt in Harper’s eyes when he’d pulled away. Couldn’t stop wondering if pushing her away made her safer or just made them both more alone.
And he couldn’t shake the feeling that tomorrow—when Harper put herself in the killer’s crosshairs—everything was going to go wrong.