Just Right (Part 19)
Gretel: Only One Way
I lied to him. I lied to him and I didn’t care. I lied to him, and it’s going to get him killed. But what was one broken, run-down cop under the Giant’s heel when my whole case hung in the balance?
I stared at my reflection in the window of the last car. The Q line was still bustling, which wasn’t unusual for the middle of the night, but no one even came near me. And would I have noticed if they had? And what would they have seen?
I peered out past the rain-streaked window, trying to avoid my own accusing eyes, but there was no solace in the glowing lights dotting the city’s darkness. Those eyes burned with the fires I’d set the last two years. Like the burning need inside me.
Finish the job. Let them all burn, but finish the job.
And yet. What even was the job anymore? Charlie was pressing again, and I couldn’t keep him at bay much longer. Give him what? My own bloody signature on the death certs of more souls than I could count? And if not death, worse — a lifetime of torment and suffering. A lifetime of…
