Seeing the Cracks

Seeing the Cracks
Selena's POV
The glass crashed to the floor.
David's hand was shaking so hard he couldn't hold the water cup. He stared at the broken pieces like he didn't know how they got there.
"David?" Selena said softly. "Are you okay?"
He blinked and looked at her like he was waking up from a bad dream.
"I'm fine," he said. But his voice sounded hollow.
They were hiding in an old motel room. The kind with thin walls and flickering lights. After her mother's phone call, David had driven them here without saying a word.
That was six hours ago.
"You haven't slept," Selena said.
"Don't need sleep."
"Everyone needs sleep."
"I'm not everyone."
David knelt down and started picking up the glass pieces with his bare hands. His fingers were bleeding, but he didn't seem to notice.
"Stop," Selena said. "You're hurting yourself."
"Doesn't matter."
"It matters to me."
David looked up at her. His eyes were red and tired. When was the last time he really slept? Days? Weeks?
"Why won't you rest?" she asked.
"Can't."
"Why not?"
David stood up slowly. The glass pieces fell from his hands.
"Because when I close my eyes, I see her face."
"Whose face?"
"Your mother's. The woman I shot."
Selena felt her heart squeeze tight. Even though they now knew the woman wasn't really her mother, David didn't know that when he pulled the trigger.
"David, that wasn't—"
"It doesn't matter," he cut her off. "I still killed someone. I still pulled that trigger thinking it was Maria Rossi."
He walked to the window and stared out at the empty parking lot.
"Every night for fifteen years, I see her face. I hear the gunshot. I watch her fall."
"Is that why you became Rook?" Selena asked. "To punish yourself?"
"I became Rook because I was good at killing. And your father needed someone who was good at killing."
"But you hate it."
David turned around. "What makes you say that?"
"The way you look after a job. Like something inside you just died."
"Maybe something did."
Selena walked over to him. Up close, she could see how thin he was getting. The cancer was eating him alive, and the guilt was making it worse.
"David, you need to forgive yourself."
"For what? Murder?"
"For being human."
"Humans don't do what I do."
"Yes, they do. Good people sometimes do terrible things. It doesn't make them monsters."
David laughed, but it wasn't a happy sound. "You really believe that?"
"I believe you're not the same person who pulled that trigger fifteen years ago."
"How do you know?"
"Because the old you wouldn't have saved me at the museum. The old you wouldn't care if I lived or died."
David was quiet for a long time.
"The old me was already dead," he finally said. "I just didn't know it yet."
That's when Selena's phone buzzed. Text message.
From her mother.
We need to talk. Tonight. Pier 47. Come alone.
"Who is it?" David asked.
"My mom. She wants to meet."
"It's a trap."
"Maybe. But I have to go."
"No, you don't."
"She's my mother, David. The only family I have left."
"Your father—"
"My father let her die. Or thought he did. Either way, he chose his business over his family."
"And your mother chose the FBI over you."
That hurt because it was true. Her mother had been willing to fake Selena's death just to protect her mission.
"I still need to see her," Selena said.
"Then I'm coming with you."
"She said come alone."
"I don't care what she said."
David grabbed his gun from the nightstand. His hands were still shaking.
"David, you can barely hold a glass of water. How are you going to protect me?"
"The same way I always have."
"By dying?"
The words came out harsher than she meant. But she was scared. Scared of losing him. Scared of being alone.
David stopped moving. "Would that bother you?"
"What?"
"If I died. Would it bother you?"
Selena stared at him. How could he even ask that?
"Of course it would bother me."
"Why?"
"Because I..." She stopped. What was she going to say? Because I care about you? Because I'm starting to love you? Because you're the only person who's ever truly protected me?
All of those things were true. And all of them were impossible.
"Because you're all I have left," she said instead.
David nodded like that made sense to him.
"Then we go together. But we do it smart."
"What do you mean?"
"I know Pier 47. It's got three ways in and two ways out. If it's a trap, we'll see it coming."
"And if it's not a trap?"
"Then you get to talk to your mother."
"What if she tries to arrest me?"
"She's FBI, not a cop. She can't arrest you."
"What if she tries to disappear me again?"
"Then I'll stop her."
"How?"
David looked at her with those cold gray eyes. But underneath the ice, she saw something burning.
"The same way I'd stop anyone who tried to hurt you."
They left the motel as the sun was setting. David drove while Selena watched the city pass by outside her window. Normal people doing normal things. Going to dinner. Walking their dogs. Living lives that didn't involve death and betrayal and family secrets.
She used to have a normal life. Before her mother "died." Before she learned her father was a criminal. Before she met Rook.
Now normal felt like a fairy tale.
"David?"
"Yeah?"
"What happens after tonight?"
"What do you mean?"
"After we meet my mother. After we deal with Morrison. After all this is over. What happens to us?"
David was quiet for so long she thought he wasn't going to answer.
"I don't know," he finally said.
"Do you want to know?"
"Want doesn't matter."
"It matters to me."
"Why?"
Because I think I'm falling in love with you, she thought. Because you're dying and I can't save you. Because you're the first person who's ever made me feel safe and terrified at the same time.
"Because I need something to hope for," she said instead.
David pulled the car into a parking lot near the pier. The ocean stretched out in front of them, dark and endless.
"Hope is dangerous," he said.
"So is living without it."
They got out of the car and walked toward the pier. The air smelled like salt and fish. Seagulls cried overhead.
Pier 47 was long and narrow, stretching out into the black water. A few streetlights cast pools of yellow light, but most of it was shadows.
"I don't see her," Selena said.
"She's here. End of the pier."
David was right. A figure stood at the very end, looking out at the ocean. A woman with long dark hair.
"Mom?" Selena called out.
The woman turned around.
It was her mother. Older. Thinner. But definitely Maria Rossi.
"Hello, sweetheart," her mother said.
Selena started walking toward her. David grabbed her arm.
"Something's wrong," he said.
"What?"
"She's not alone."
That's when the lights went out. All of them. The pier plunged into darkness.
"Selena, run!" David shouted.
But it was too late.
Men stepped out of the shadows. Lots of men. All with guns pointed at them.
And standing behind her mother, smiling his cold smile, was Morrison.
"Hello, Selena," Morrison said. "Your mother and I have been having the most interesting conversation about you."
Maria Rossi turned to face her daughter. But instead of love in her eyes, there was something else.
Something that looked like regret.
"I'm sorry, sweetheart," her mother said. "But some sacrifices are necessary."
"Mom, what are you talking about?"
"You were never supposed to survive this long."