Page 70 of Nash
Ruby's jaw tightens. Her arms stay crossed.
"Naya has a sister. Her name is Sera." I press my thumb into the headband on my wrist. "Sera disappeared three years ago. She was seventeen. She got pulled into a trafficking pipeline connected to Donovan Castiel and Alice Brighton. By the time I found the thread, she was gone."
Ruby's arms loosen. Her eyes move to the headband.
"This is Sera's." I hold up my wrist. "Naya gave it to me after Sera disappeared. I told her I'd find her sister. I wear it because the promise isn't finished."
The room is quiet. Ruby stares at the faded red fabric.
"Naya touches my arm because she's asking if there's news about her sister. I press the headband when I'm with Naya because being near her is the closest I get to Sera. The guilt of failing that girl sits in my chest every time I look at her sister's face."
Ruby's chin trembles once. She presses her lips together to stop it.
"You saw me with Naya and you thought she was mine." I crouch in front of her so my eyes are level with hers. "She's not. The headband is a promise to a missing girl. Naya is a sister looking for answers. That's all they are."
"Then why did you pull back?" Her voice is rough. "After the hallway. Why did you spend three days treating me like a perimeter if it wasn't because of her?"
"Because kissing you scared me more than anything I've faced in three years of this investigation." The words come out raw. "Because I have things I'm carrying that I can't put down yet,and crossing that line with you means letting you close enough to see all of it. I pulled back because I was trying to protect you from the weight of what I'm holding."
"I don't need protecting, Nash."
"I know."
"I knew you were close to her." Her voice is rough. "I'd seen her name come up. I'd watched you go to those fights. But I never thought anything of it, Nash. I didn't. Then you kissed me and pulled back. You told me you were going to Vesper, but went to the fight circuit instead." Her eyes harden. "You lied to me."
The words land. She's right.
"I watched you through a window standing in a hallway with her, pressing that headband while you looked at her face. And I thought, this is why. This is why he pulled back. This is why he said not like this. Because there's someone else, and I was just the woman on the couch he lost control with for ten minutes."
"Ruby—"
"I spent a week sitting three feet from you thinking I was a slip you corrected." Her eyes are bright. Her voice shakes. "Do you have any idea what that felt like?"
"Yes." I reach up and cup her jaw. Her skin is warm under my palm. "Because I spent the same week watching you pull away from me and thinking I deserved it."
"You lied about Vesper."
"I know."
"You looked me in the face and told me you were covering Arden's rotation, then you went to a fight circuit to see a woman you couldn't tell me about."
"I know."
"Don't do it again."
"I won't."
Her breath hitches. Her hand comes up and grips my wrist, fingers wrapping around the headband, holding on.
"You're an idiot," she whispers.
"Noted."
"A massive, stubborn, emotionally constipated idiot who could have told me this a week ago instead of standing at a wall like a decorative gargoyle while I ate my feelings in gas station candy."
"Also noted."
"I hate you."
