I’m a bastard to say she wasn’t worth it.
She was worth so much more than what I had to give, and that fucking terrified me. I’d hurt myself before I hurt another person I love—
My spine shot straight.
Love...
For the second time, that sneaky word snaked into my thoughts.
I knew sibling and parental love. I understood what it was like to give someone my heart unconditionally because of blood and obligation.
But to go from strangers to friends...to in love.
To hand over my everything and be happy that I had the ability to fall instead of freak out about what this meant.
Am I in love?
Was that what churned inside my chest? The sickening knowledge that I would throw myself out of the window if it meant it was the only way to keep Pim safe, or was it yet another layer of guilt knowing what she’d lived?
The question hissed through my blood, twisting the need for physical intimacy into something entirely different.
She was the one making me hurt.
But she could also be the one to make me better.
All my previous rationales vanished.
Glancing at the door, I stood before I gave myself permission. I’d tell her exactly what had to happen. That for the next week, she’d have to stay in quarantine for her own protection. If we crossed paths, a minimum distance would be recognised at all times with staff present. And above all, no touching.
If she obeyed, I could get myself under control again, and we could go back to being friends.
I could continue to love her. Care for her. Cherish her. And she would be given everything she ever wanted.
My hand clamped over the door-knob while my mind entered a fugue, desperate to earn Pim’s laugh again, to watch her steal something inconsequential all the while stealing my heart.
That was what I needed.
She was what I needed.
We can make this work.
We could sail side by side as cohabiters until we arrived in England. There, I’d set her free because it was the right thing to do.
I would forever be her No One, and who knew? Perhaps we could remain pen friends while I sailed the seas searching for redemption and she slotted back into the life she was stolen from.
The idea warmed my aching heart while at the same time crushing it beneath its vicious shoe.
Wishing I had a joint to take the edge off, I yanked open the door and stepped into the suite’s lounge.
My eyes fell to the carpet where she’d stood and begged me to talk to her.
Nothing.
The thick floor-covering held no indents of her feet, no sign she’d been there at all. Of course, she wouldn’t remain standing for over an hour. She’d return to somewhere far more comfortable.
The bed.
I couldn’t approach such a thing—especially after we’d had sex on it—but I gritted my teeth and stalked toward the bedroom we’d shared. To the crumpled sheets and the lingering scent of sadness and lust.
Empty.
Instantly, I missed her presence.
There was no rustle of femininity. No prickle of her eyes on my body.
No silent mouse or brave Pimlico.
The room was bare.
My stomach turned to lead as I spun slowly, peering into the bathroom, believing any second she’d come out and I’d stride forward and gather her in a bone-crunching hug.
A hug that would turn to kissing.
A kiss that would turn to touching.
A touch that would turn to fucking.
A nightmare
that
I
could
never
fucking
stop.
Inhaling hard, I pinched the bridge of my nose, shoving aside those thoughts and focusing on the vacant room.
She was gone.
Which was probably a good thing. An excellent thing. But the knowledge she’d snuck out while I sulked in the other room tore my skin from my skeleton.
Then my gaze fell on the folded note on the bed.
Ah, shit.
Raking fingernails over my scalp, I shook my head as if denial would change the finality of the white paper.
“No.” I backed away rather than shot for it.
I already knew what it said. This was my fault. I’d scared her off. I’d hurt her. Through my actions and harshness, I’d told her to leave. I’d wanted this to happen even though I’d negate such a claim.
“Fuck.”
She’d been too strong for her own good. She’d ignored her distrust of strangers and choosen a corrupt world over me.
Forcing myself forward, I picked up the letter.
The penmanship was familiar from reading her notes to No One. My eyes skimmed the text—absorbing the theme but unable to fully soak in her crippling message.
Sentences like I always knew our time together was temporary—just like you.
And This is goodbye, Elder.
They were too violently excruciating to accept.
Instead, I looked at the scribble over Pimli- at the bottom and froze.
Goddammit, could the pain get any worse?
I crumpled up her note, doing my best to hide what I’d seen—what she’d given me—but the six little letters of her signature burned upon my retinas.
Not the name given to her by misfortune.
But her true name.
The name Selix had told me yesterday when he’d informed me of the location of Pim’s mother. The name I’d known and hadn’t told her—even as I demanded more of her heart than I could ever deserve.
Tasmin.
“Fuck.” I hung my head, balling the letter tighter with rage. She hadn’t enlightened me on her last name, but it didn’t matter.
I knew that, too.
I’d stolen her right to tell me, and it made me a shitty human being.
Tasmin Blythe.
The psychology student from West London with good grades, a lonely existence, and perfect behaviour as a role model daughter to one of the most prolific criminal psychologists in the United Kingdom.
Selix had been the one to find out, but I hadn’t stopped there.
I’d turned to Google, and instead of asking Pim everything I wanted to know, I once again stooped to stalking. I’d read her letters to No One, and now I’d read facts written about her online by third parties.
No matter what information Google gave me, it hadn’t given me an ounce of what I’d learned by living with her. Google could tell me about the night of her abduction. It could deliver missing person reports, newspaper articles of this shining rising star, and how police had no leads. But it couldn’t tell me what she smelled like, laughed like, moaned like. It couldn’t teach me the way her eyes widened when I gave her a compliment or how her teeth indented her lower lip as I kissed her throat.
But Google had told me things Pim didn’t know herself. A few months after her kidnapping, more documents appeared, but this time, they focused on her mother. The mother who was suddenly thrust into the limelight, eclipsing her daughter’s disappearance with her own heinous actions.
I had it all wrong.
I thought I wanted information. That I wanted every secret and hidden agenda. However, gaining that knowledge from a computer screen was hollow and woefully unsatisfying.