Page 158 of Brutal

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The world feels different afterward.

Like something that was held back is no longer contained.

I’m not standing at the edge anymore. I stepped over it.

I chose it.

I chose him.

I lie there for a moment, staring at nothing, feeling everything.

The house around us. The locked door. The key.

The truth sitting just out of reach.

And him.

Always him.

This isn’t just an investigation anymore.

It hasn’t been for a while.

I know that now.

I know it in a way I can’t undo.

I turn my head slightly. He’s there. Still. Watching. Not relaxed.

If anything, he’s more dangerous than before.

Because now he knows I’m not walking away.

And worse…

I know it too.

I should say something.

I don’t.

Because there’s nothing I can say that won’t make this more real than it already is. More permanent. More impossible to step back from.

So I don’t speak.

Neither does he.

But the silence between us is no longer empty.

It’s full of every line we just crossed.

And everything we haven’t even begun to understand.

41

SAMSON

I don’t sleep long. I don’t need to.

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