I've Died Here Before novel · Chapter 10 of 24

Chapter 10: Not at the Water

The terrace was empty, because September nights on the Hudson were cold enough to keep smokers inside.

Dean walked me across the stone with his thumb on my wrist.

I dragged my heels, and he simply lifted me an inch off them and kept walking.

"Scream," the voice said. "Scream, scream, scream!"

I screamed.

The music from the ballroom swallowed it whole.

"That was loud," Dean said politely. "You've got lungs."

We reached the rail.

It was waist-high, black iron, with the river forty feet below and nothing but dark water and a few moored boats.

I could smell it, cold and green.

"I've done this eight times," the voice whispered. "I hate this rail. I hate it, I hate it."

"You embarrassed my sister in there," Dean said.

"She tried to buy me off."

"She was being generous."

"She's marrying a man who doesn't want her."

Dean smiled.

"He'll want what he's given," he said. "He always did, when he was twenty-two."

He put his hand flat on my back.

It was a gentle hand, and it pressed.

My hips touched the iron.

I got both hands on the rail, and he pushed me forward another inch.

"Last Thursday you walked away," he said. "I don't blame you. Very sensible. But rivers don't remember who's sensible."

"Dean."

The voice came from behind us, low and flat and so quiet I almost didn't hear it.

I knew it anyway.

Holden had come out of the ballroom doors without anyone noticing.

He walked across the terrace in his tuxedo, and he did not run, which was worse.

He went around Dean to my left, to the river side.

He put himself between me and the rail.

His back was to the black water, and his shoulder was against my shoulder, and I could feel the shaking in him through his jacket.

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