2. Empty shards

This time Mike snuck in from the back. The downstairs floor was equally dark and silent but a small glimmer of light peeked from the kitchen.

Two days had passed and she was still there. Charlie called him and ordered he went there again and forced her to join them at the safe house, at any cost. She hoped and knew that Mike could change her mind.

When he spotted her at the sink, her body seemed even smaller than it did two days before. She was standing with her back facing him, her curly hair overshadowing her face. She tucked a strand behind her ear and stared in front of her. Mike knew she had sensed his presence.

He took his hands out of his pockets and reached up to lower his hood.

"You shouldn't still be here. You should be with the others, at the safe house."

Paige laughed sarcastically. Mike eyed the carton of OJ peeking from the sink. His focus shifted to the greek yogurt sitting on the cupboard.

Shaking her head, she wiped her hands on a rag and turned around, leaning back on the cabinet.

"They're worried about you. You're a sitting duck."

Her unusually tortured fingers curled around a spoon and Mike watched the cream disappear behind her chapped lips. His dull eyes fixed on her.

"Really?"

The way she seemed to be more interested in her snack made him want to strangle her. He could've easily blamed Sid, nobody would have ever known.

"That's why I'm here." He continued to stare at her, refusing to snatch the box from her hand and drag her away kicking and screaming, like the old Mike would surely have done.

"You're wasting your time, I'm not going. I will not let a slimy worm kick me out of my house."

"I know. And that's why I'm here."

Her body stiffened and Mike knew he had struck a nerve. Maybe Sid wouldn't make Paige leave Graceland, but he would - the memory of what they had been and what got destroyed would.

He slowly walked over to the counter until just a few steps were separating them. "Look into my eyes."

But she didn't. If she had, she would've seen nothing but desolation and that would've darkened the black stain she had on her conscience.

"About the other night..."

Paige didn't let him finish. With a dry laugh, she dropped everything in the sink and hastily turned away from him.

"It didn't mean anything. It never happened. I don't sleep with murderers."

"No, you enjoy being one."

His words were left hanging in the air. Neither of them moved. Mike just stared at her back. Her hands curled at her sides in two white-knuckled fists.

"Don't you dare." She whipped around and dangerously approached him to hiss in his face. But even then she managed to keep her eyes low and focused on his stubbly cheeks, letting the truth blatantly speak for itself. "I don't go around burning poor innocent girls' bodies."

She had never openly reproached to him the one mistake she couldn't bring herself to forgive.

The one mistake that had costed a girl's life.

Mike had had no right to be wrong, that day. He was a fed. He couldn't live seizing the day. He couldn't make such a tragic mistake and then try to justify himself by pretending to be in love for the first time like a teenager. Not when the stakes were so high. She didn't care that he had done every possible and impossible thing to get her out of Sylmar.

She had left him no choice in there, but no one had forced him to make the wrong choice.

"No, it's true. You don't. You're much classier. A black widow. You prefer to send killers to do your dirty job."

Paige stared at him. Her expression didn't hide her pain as she absorbed every syllable of what he just said.

She had blindly trusted him, despite the events of the previous summer giving her every reason not to. But all the secrets, all the lies, had come to light and she'd felt betrayed, deceived by the one person who should have never made her feel like that - they had clouded her mind, damaged her heart, destroyed all that she was and what they were together.

And now there he was, back to haunting her again with his stupid pretense of doing the right thing.

She didn't need him. She knew what the right thing to do was. She had to stay in Graceland. She had to hunt down those monsters and clear the earth from them, avenge Lina and herself.

Sid would come to her and Paige would be waiting with her gun aimed his way, ready to blow his brains out. They all had to pay, whatever it took.

But Mike... all she needed to do was throwing him out. Tell him to go away, disappear forever.

When Paige recovered from the initial shock, she raised her hand ready to strike him in the face. Before she could do that, however, Mike went on full alert and grabbed her wrist, twisting it and yanking her to him. He leaned down to her and growled in her ear, avoiding any sort of eye contact.

"Am I not enough of a guy in a bag?"

Silence.

Paige turned her head, carefully watching him. Trying to read him, to see something that would give her the strength to react to those words as hard as stone. Eventually, she managed to do what she'd feared to do all along: she looked into his eyes to scroll through the emotions and feelings hidden behind, which for the first time ever were completely absent from his soul.

Only then she looked at him - really looked at him, taking in the skin of his face, so tense that it could crack any second.

His eyes didn't even seem like they belonged to him anymore. They were glazed, as if he had no eyes because he was empty inside, having had everything that made a life worth living taken away from him.

A shell of a shattered man.

"You can't feel anything." She whispered, nodding unconsciously. Like in trance.

The iron grip on her arm loosened and Paige realized that neither a spark nor a tremor had popped between them. The spot where their bodies just touched wasn't covered in goose bumps, it was just as tepid as it was before.

"I forgive you." Mike ignored her statement, equally aware that there was no relationship to mend anymore, nothing to salvage, except her. It was too late for him. By now, Mike was simply gone and nothing would bring him back. But Paige - she still had a chance to save herself from oblivion.

"You shouldn't." She murmured. A glistening tear pinched the corner of her eye.

"I forgive you." He repeated, resolutely. "But it's not enough to make it all okay."

He pulled his hood back up and stepped back. Licking his lips, he put his hands back into his pockets, ready to leave.

Paige nodded to herself, turning around to subtly wipe at her eyes. She hated Mike with all she had - she hated him for Lina and she hated him for forgiving her.

"Pack your stuff, go away and don't look back. Alright?"

She nodded again, letting out a breath. When she passed by to go upstairs, his hand surprisingly wrapped around hers in a gentle grip.

Her perfume made him narrow his eyes and freshened his nostrils, as his front brushed against her back and he leaned in.

For a moment, Paige felt freed from the heaviness in her chest when Mike brushed her hair aside and pressed his cheek against hers. She closed her eyes, breathing deeply, trying to hold onto that moment in any way she could, aware that she'd lost.

That was the only closure they could have - that touch was the only thing he could give her, kissing her would be useless, she knew that too.

And just like that, when she opened her eyes again, Mike was gone.