Playing God (Helford #2)

(9) Alive

I am not a stranger to the feeling that comes when time stops—I felt it when I was falling toward the ocean and ice, and I felt it in the moments following when Rian’s heart stopped beating. The moment slows down, going so slow around you that it makes your heart race and your skin go cold. I remembered the rush of resisting air as I fell and how hard it was to breathe when I looked down at what I had done. I had felt heavier than the world at that moment, and it felt like time would never start again, like I would be forever stuck in this mutated limbo for the rest of my days.

I had only just hours earlier been thinking about my sins and how I wouldn’t be mad if I suffered for them, and I should have known that nothing was more unforgiving than karma.

It was like seeing a ghost, but so much worse because I knew that Jonathon was flesh and bone and standing in front of me, and that I could see him but he could not see me through Nina Abraham, and it kind of reminded me that I gave up on him so many years ago to wander this path.

I once thought that letting him go would be the only solution. I thought that if I was put in a position where I couldn’t monitor him, where I didn’t know where in the world he could possibly be, that I might be able to forget him and what he had always meant to me, the innocent soul in the hands of the devious Devil’s advocate.

Now that I was looking at him and time had stopped and his hand was held out for me to shake and the thought of touching him nearly set me on fire, I realized that all I had been this whole time without him was alone. I hadn’t even had the illusion of his company to soothe me.

Seeing him was like a nightmare and a breath of fresh air, like that moment when you wake from a nightmare and breathe in a sharp breath and you are aware that you are awake but the terror hadn’t worn off yet, and you still feel trapped, like you will never be free.

And then time starts back up again, as if it had never stopped in the first place, and you’re left with the painful back-lash of the moments that no one else would know you lived.

I reacted to Jonathon more robotically than I did out of thought. I took his hand and I shook it, smiling politely, and said, “I have been meaning to speak to you. It’s a pleasure.”

He was still smiling at me. We were perfect strangers.

It surprised me just how much that hurt.

“We’ve been looking forward to having you around these parts.” He smirked. “It’s not every day we find out that a public figure used to spend her days murdering people because someone behind a desk told her to.”

My smile hardened, in both anger and surprise. This was not the Jonathon that I had always known. I didn’t know anything about this person.

From behind me, I heard Meade suck in a surprised breath, the reaction I would have had if I wasn’t too much of a piece of stone, my mask unbreakable. I felt the presence of Meade stepping one step closer to me, bringing him closer to Jonathon, and I was suddenly aware that I should probably be watching for flying fists.

Jonathon’s gaze slipped from mine to Meade as Meade told him, his voice like ice water, “It’s best to watch your tongue around Helford operatives, DuPont. Especially this one.”

“We already established what I think of the majority of your opinions, Meade.”

“I could shoot you,” Meade said dismissively, tilting his head in my direction, “but she could definitely shoot you faster.”

“It is best not to pick fights with trained assassins, Monsieur DuPont,” I cautioned him, much more hurt than I was offended, injured at the world I had forced him into that changed him so much. “I am not going to shoot you, but I will if you don’t pull the stick out of your ass.”