Page 99 of Pulse Zero
I snap my mouth shut.
Okay, maybe I’m spiraling a little.
“You’re right,” Harrison says, sounding a hell lot more calm than I feel. “You did help me back then, and I’m still very grateful. So tell me what you need from me.”
I blink.
Well, that was easier than expected.
“Really?”
“You’re part of the reason Lane is alive right now. I don’t take that lightly.”
I wince. Lane also very nearlywasn’talive because of me, but if he’s willing to forget that part, then so am I.
Distracting myself, I grin and say, “Fucking smitten.”
“In love,” he corrects.
“Right.” I let out a quiet laugh, but it comes out thinner than I mean it to. “Married too so I heard. Congratulations.”
“Thank you.”
I fall silent as something eats away at everything in my chest. It’s like I can feel the pressure of tiny teeth, biting their way through bone and muscle and organs. It’s heavy and hot. My grip tightens around my phone as those teeth sink deeper, until I’m too full of something I don’t want to name.
Jealousy.
For a split second—just one, fleeting traitorous second—I wonder what it would be like. Not with Reese, of course. Withanyone. The fact that any face I try to imagine having all of that with is Reese’s doesn’t mean anything.
I hate him.
Maybe the more I think that the more likely it will become true.
“Case?”
“Right.” I clear my throat. “I don’t suppose I have to tell you first that I’d rather keep this on the down-low?”
“You should know by now how well I can keep secrets.”
“Right,” I say again, starting to feel like a broken record. “It might also be a little dangerous…”
“Out with it, Case.”
I swallow, my throat suddenly dry as hell. This is the part where I sound completely unhinged.
“Okay. We’re just…hypothetically, we’re going to entertain a concept here. Have you ever heard of near-death experiences causing…I don’t know…superhuman abilities?”
Silence is the only thing that comes over the line, and not the thinking kind. It’s thewhat the fuck did you just saykind.
“Do you want me to repeat the question, or are you just taking a moment to process how insane that sounded?”
“It sounded insane,” he confirms flatly.
“Sure, but…more insane than reincarnation?”
“Yes.”
I sigh heavily and lean forward with an elbow on my knee. “You only think that because you know without a shadow of a doubt that reincarnation is real. Well…Iknow without a…” I wince and clear my throat again. “…shadowof a doubt that this is real.Nothypothetical.”
