Live to Venture (#0)

44 | The Tunnel of Adventure

Vallin waited.

He sat in his chair, leaning forward against the desk with his hands clasped together.

He didn't hear anything from outside, but he knew it was happening. He hoped it was. Or rather he didn't.

Maybe. Maybe he didn't. Maybe he should take it back. He should take it back—

The door swung open, and she appeared in the frame, the barrel of a pistol caught under Bates' chin. He struggled in her grasp, unable to get out.

"How did that happen?" Vallin asked Bates. He was so glad it happened. He was so furious it happened. He did not rise from his chair, he did not look at her. He'd done enough today. He deserved a drink now.

"Respectfully, sir," Bates began, "I think you knew exactly how that happened."

Vallin leaned back in his chair for a moment, running his hand through his hair. Liquor, liquor, liquor. That's all his thoughts consisted of. Rum, then a little splash of terror over having to speak to her. To look at her. He rose.

She was finally looking him in the eye, but this time it was him that couldn't meet her gaze. He held his hand out palm-up, outstretched to her.

She placed the gun in his grasp, and he closed his fingers around it.

He wanted to touch her very carefully, to make sure she was real. He was sober, so she had to be real, but he just couldn't trust his mind these days. He wanted to brush his hand over her gently, but he wanted to scream until his vocal cords snapped and broke. Toss her against the wall violently, rip her apart until she promised to stay.

"Go, Bates," Vallin said, his voice beginning to betray him. It was always the first thing to go—his voice, then the drop of his shoulders, then the muscles in his face. It all fell from his grasp so quickly these days.

Bates spun on his heel and slammed the door behind him. Vallin couldn't care less about him being upset. In his life recently, very few things rose to a level of interest. Fear, anger, relief—those emotions didn't really find him much anymore. Everything existed on the same plane, except for her. She floated above everything else, pulling him into a ghost-like reality where everything suddenly mattered very much. The way his hair looked, the way he smelled or walked, but not how Bates was feeling.

Vallin took a small step back. Away from her, those pretty eyes, that pull towards her. Her, and every vicious thing she brought with her, was home.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. Her voice was still beautiful, still smooth on the consonants and rough on the vowels.

Vallin closed his eyes. Just her voice for now. When he felt a little stronger, a little more stable, then he'd focus on her face, too.

"I know that means nothing," she said, taking a cautious step forward. "I know it doesn't mean anything after all this, Vallin, I know that. But I still need to say it."

"You can have strategist," he said, keeping his eyes closed and staying that safe distance from her. "We'll appoint you in the morning."

Her face lost every edge it ever had. "That doesn't matter—"

"It doesn't?" he asked, opening his eyes. All this time, he'd felt so low, so sad, so depressed—he never even thought to feel angry, betrayed, upset. He never realized how he might be justified to feel such things. "Strategist, power?" he asked. "Those things don't mean anything to you anymore? That's all I have left to give you."

She took a deep breath, clearly having trouble forming her thoughts, a trouble Vallin had never known her to have. A second went by, then another second.