Page 142 of Everything That Kills Me
Do you love me?Canyou love me?“Are you happy?”
“Is anyone truly happy?”
“That’s a terrible answer. Are you happy? Thomas said you didn’t want to do this anymore. But I know it’s not that simple. There’s a ripple effect when you kill someone. Others might be sent to kill you. You have to kill them and keep swimming until one day, you meet another shark who’s better than you, faster, more deadly. I see the clues now in what you said that I didn’t see when you said them.”
Jack nodded. “Eventually, someone will catch me or I’ll get too tired to keep swimming, or forget what I need to do in order to keep swimming safely. My life’s been spent maintaining a constant awareness of my surroundings: judging lines of sight, possible angles of attack, thinking about which individual might prove to be a threat and how I could bring them down. I can’t walk anywhere in a straight line. I have to be continually vigilant and never stay too long in the same place.”
“That must be exhausting.”
“It was. It is. But I walked in a straight line with you.”
Except I was a distraction.
“Except you were a distraction.”
Now Zeph was reading minds.
“But it’s not just that. Someone might use or hurt me to get to Thomas and vice versa. If you were threatened, I’d want to rescue you and in rushing to do that I might make mistakes. So you’re a danger to me and I’m a danger to you. That’s a poor basis for a relationship.”
Zeph put his chopsticks down. His appetite had gone.
Jack picked them up and put them back in his fingers. “Keep eating.”
“Just let me feel sorry for myself. Give me a minute.”
“Let me know when you’re done.”
Zeph released a choked laugh.
“When Thomas found out I’d been watching you, he thought about telling you I was dead, that it would be kinder. I couldn’t agree to that.”
“I kept hoping you’d come back. I hovered between grief and anger. Settled in a sort of depression. Then just…existed. I only wanted you.”
Jack reached across the table for his hand and took hold of his fingers. “I wanted you to find someone else. I don’t want you to be sad.”
“Then don’t leave again.”
“One last job.”
Zeph groaned. “And that’s because of me spotting Thomas? He said you’d be killed if Al-Talib wasn’t dead by Saturday. I’d ask you not to do it but I know you want to protect him. He said you’d been pulled into working for the government. What have you been doing since I last saw you?”
“Some of it I spent protecting a Texan oil guy.”
“Not now?”
“He sold up and moved to Hawaii. He figured he was safe.”
“Is he?”
“Not my problem.”
Zeph stroked Jack’s fingers. “Who wants Al-Talib dead?”
“The CIA.”
Zeph sagged. “Are the two governments not talking?”
“Three governments are talking.”
