Page 110 of Savagely Yours
He rolled his eyes.
“Wait, so you tossed me in Sanitation based on thepossibilitythat I was investigating you back then?”
“I didn’t toss you in Sanitation,” he insisted. “There are rules. You’re unmarried. You have no children. As a woman, that makes you a higher risk intake. And we were right.”
“Have you ever thought that I might not have been rebellious if you hadn’t tossed me in Sanitation?”
“Again, I didn’t toss you in Sanitation. Now, when I learned you were there…yes, I made things a little harder for you, but I stopped liking you long before all of this.”
I remained quiet.
There was no way he wasn’t itching to tell me why.
“Sit,” he said. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
I stood.
Sighing, he slowly climbed to his feet.
“My father was a shit human being,” he began, leaning his shoulder against the cracked tunnel wall. “It wasn’t until I turned forty that I could admit that out loud. And he didn’t beat me. He barely ever laid a hand on me. He was just so fucking toxic.”
He dragged his hands through his hair, and I watched, in real time, as he grew more accepting of our suffocating surroundings.
My grip on the knife tightened.
“He had his demons with his father, my grandad, and I get that, but there were times this man would take cases of beer, a pack of smokes, and a prostitute into his room and stay holed up there for weeks. I don’t know how my mother managed to last until I was ten, but she left, and she didn’t take me with her.”
I loathed this man.
But he didn’t deserve abandonment.
“I’m sorry that happened to you,” I offered.
“That, Larke,” he said. “That’s why I stopped liking you.”
“Compassion? Burn me. I’m a witch.”
“You don’t get it.”
“Because it’s stupid and makes no sense.”
He stared at me, his mouth working as if he was chewing on the inside of his cheek. “Just so you know, this isn’t the moment where I’m going to make some big reveal that I’ve secretly been in love with you the whole time.”
“Good.”
“But—”
“Eww.”
“Will you let me…” He made another path through his hair with his fingers. “Look, I remember the exact day you joined the U.S. Attorney’s office. I’d heard about you, heard about how good you were. Then, when I met you, I thought you were a bit too…how should I put this? Too pretty. Like the hair and the makeup and the suits.”
“Too pretty to be qualified?”
“And to be as smart as you are.”
“Areyoujoking?”
“I wish I was, but I’m not.”
