Page 147 of Forever Dark
“That sounds almost generous.”
“I’m capable of generosity, you know, boss.”
“You ration it carefully, Selena, when it comes to Harlan County.”
That got a faint breath of amusement from Selena, but it passed quickly.
The office window behind Meg showed Washington in its late-afternoon shape.Gray light on stone buildings.Traffic inching below.A world of meetings and briefings and men in polished shoes pretending their mistakes were strategy.Selena had lived inside that machinery long enough to move through it almost without feeling it.
Today it felt farther away than it should have.She already missed the smell of pines and the flow of a slow, simple river.
Meg leaned back in her chair, folded her hands once over the closed file, and looked at Selena for a few seconds without speaking.
Then she said, “You did a hell of a job.”
Selena looked up.
Meg’s voice remained level, but the words landed more heavily because of that.
“But you always do,” Meg added.
Praise from other people usually slid off Selena.Praise from Meg never had.
“Thank you,” she said.
Meg waved it off lightly, then tapped the file with one finger.“Now, off the record.How was it being home?”
For once Selena did not have a ready answer.
She looked down at the file.At her own hand resting beside it.At the faint white scar near her thumb from a training injury fifteen years ago.Little old things had a way of resurfacing lately.
“I don’t know,” she said at last.“At first I hated it.”
Meg waited.
Selena let out a slow breath and leaned back in the chair.
“It felt small,” she said.“Too familiar.Like the place knew things about me I’d spent years trying not to think about.”Her gaze drifted toward the window, though she was not really seeing Washington anymore.“But then… I don’t know.I’d missed it.The place.The people.Even the parts that irritate me.”
Meg watched her with the quiet attention she reserved for moments when she thought honesty might actually happen if she did not interrupt it.
“It’s a strange feeling,” Selena said.
Meg nodded once.“That usually means it matters.”
Silence held for a moment.
Then Meg opened a drawer, took out a single sheet from another folder, and set it aside without yet offering it over.
“You should take a break now,” she said.“Two hard cases back-to-back deserve some downtime.”
Selena raised an eyebrow.“Is that your way of telling me the suits in Washington are still annoyed at me for blowing a hole in their case?”
Meg’s expression remained as calm as ever.“You could put it that way.It’s only been a week.”
“So, I’m being politely benched.”
“You’re being tactically underused for a short while.”
