For some reason, I found myself struggling to find the right words.
What was she doing to me?
I never understood the things she said. It was like she was playing games with me.
Except that it seemed sometimes like she was just as surprised by the things that would come out of her mouth as I was. She'd get this started look on her face.
I had to get my act together. She was just a witness on a case. That was it.
But it felt like I was constantly at least one step behind, trying to figure her out. It pissed me off, losing control of the situation like that.
So I did what came easily for me.
I was an asshole.
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It shouldn't have bothered me—realizing that she didn't like cops.
I was used to hearing crap about the police force. Especially from professional elite—liberals like her, who thought that everyone would along fine if the police would just stop forcing them to commit crimes.
But the fact that it was coming from her—of all people—was just too much.
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It seemed to me that she needed a little organization in her life. A little more order.
She was scattered, to say the least.
Absent professor, maybe. But it seemed almost pathological sometimes, like she was intentionally doing stupid, dangerous stuff. Trying to get into trouble.
It pissed me off.
Then again, she was working full time and going to school. Too much stress and a person was bound to crack up.
Wasn't that what my partner was always warning me?
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She was screwing with me again. She had to be.
Because if she was serious, then there had to be something wrong with her, right? Like mentally.
And if she was just screwing with me, well then, that suggested she wasn't as innocent as she claimed.
"You know," I said to her, my voice low, conciliatory. "If you've got something you want to tell me, you can. You can confide in me."
I meant it, too. Really meant it.
If she needed help—like mental help—there was only so much I could do. But I had the numbers for some crisis centers. I would do what I could for her.
I couldn't help feeling like I was promising her more than I was really able to give, though. Like I was maybe committing to something I wasn't ready for.
I was in over my head. I was too invested.
Which was insane, because this wasn't my job. If she was somehow mixed up in this murder, then okay, that was my job.
But if it was something else—
I could see the indecision in her face. And when she cleared her throat at last, my breath caught in my throat.
"I haven't got anything to say," she said.
I stood up abruptly, just so damn relieved and disappointed at the same time.
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Despite everything I'd learned about her, I couldn't help feeling that I was still missing something. If anything, I was even more worried.
I didn't want to believe that she was involved in the murders.
But I didn't want to believe that she was as erratic—as unreliable and strange—as everything suggested.
If only wishing would make it so.
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She wasn't my type.
At least, to the extent that I had a type, it wasn't her.
She wasn't textbook pretty. She wasn't sweet. She wasn't sassy.
She was furtive. She was combative and strange. She was arrogant. She lived too much in her head.
She didn't like cops. She didn't like me.
She sometimes saw things that maybe weren't there and lost track of time and hung out with dead bodies.
She was either stupid or a criminal. And she wasn't stupid, so what did that leave?
She certainly wasn't some damsel in distress, not with that attitude.
She was a goddamned riddle. She couldn't give me a straight answer about anything. She seemed to like playing games. She went out of her way to avoid being honest with me.
She was fucking up my case.
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I was never that guy. There were no spring breaks in Mexico. No wild weekends in Vegas with yoga instructors. No crazy benders.
I followed the rules. I always did what I was supposed to—every damn time. I had never even smoked a joint.
I was a cop because the rules mattered to me.
It wasn't just her refusal to stay within her lane, her inability to accept the world as-is, that had me so tempted to throw the rulebook out of the window now.
It was me.
I wanted to throw caution to the wind, just this one time, to get something that I wanted. Even if—especially if—it wasn't right.
I wanted her.
Even though it didn't make sense.
Maybe because it didn't make sense.
The end.
AN: The extended EPOV is 100 Ghost Stories, which, despite the title, isn't supernatural. If you didn't like Book of Monsters, you might like 100 Ghost Stories.
I'm still working on Crash.
Thanks for reading.