She Begged for Me Back After I Left novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Back Gate

Camille orders him to apologize, the number in his eye keeps falling, and he walks out with one bag until Dalton's car stops beside him.

Camille caught me at the curb, in front of four valets and a row of guests waiting for their cars.

She had come out without her wrap, and the wind pulled at her dress.

"Where do you think you're going?" she said again.

"Home," I said. "My room in the guesthouse. I'll be out by morning."

"Out of what?"

"Out of everything."

One of the valets found something very interesting to do with a key tag.

Camille lowered her voice, which she only did when she was angriest.

"Dalton has just been given his life back and you are making a scene on the sidewalk."

"I haven't said anything."

"You walked out on him. You took off your ring in front of the donors."

"I put it in the museum bowl."

"That is not better, Nolan."

The panel in the corner of my eye said 0.6 percent.

I had spent three years learning that number moved when the sisters felt something, and her anger was moving it in the wrong direction.

I tried to tell her what the number was now.

I opened my mouth to say that zero would erase me.

The words would not come, and a flat pressure sat on my tongue until I shut it.

"The mission is still open," the System said quietly. "The host may not disclose the penalty."

"I know," I said, out loud.

Camille frowned. "Know what?"

"Nothing. I'm tired. I'll see you at the office, if you want to talk."

"We will talk tomorrow, in the car, on the way to Dalton's tests, and you will drive."

It was the voice she used for dock managers.

I had loved that voice, once, because it had never been aimed at me.

"I'm not driving anyone tomorrow," I said.

She stared at me.

Behind her the doors opened and Alana came out at a half run, her coat over her arm.

"Camille, Dalton's asking for you. He's scared."

Camille looked at me one more second.

Then she turned and went back in, because Dalton was asking.

Alana stayed.

She held out my coat, which I had left in the coat check.

"You're being dramatic," she said, and tried to laugh. "Give it a night. By breakfast you'll be fine."

"Alana, did you know what it would cost me?"

"It's points. You said so. It's a game number."

"Is that what I said?"

Her face changed, just slightly.

"Isn't it?"

"I can't explain it," I said. "Not yet."

"Then come inside and explain it tomorrow."

I took the coat from her.

"Say goodnight to your sister for me."

She grabbed my sleeve.

I looked down at her hand until she let go.

The guesthouse sat at the back of the Winterbourne grounds, past the pool and a line of clipped hedges.

I had a bedroom there, a kitchen I never used, and a closet of suits Camille had picked.

I did not touch the suits.

I packed one canvas bag with jeans, three shirts, a razor, my father's watch and the black wool coat.

My phone buzzed on the bed.

It was Camille.

I read it, standing with the bag on my shoulder.

You embarrassed Dalton. Apologize in the morning.

Under it, a second text came in.

He's asking why you left.

The panel in my eye flickered.

0.5 percent.

I left the phone on the bed.

It was a company phone, and everything on it was hers.

I left the key to the guesthouse on the kitchen counter and the car fob beside it.

I took the forty-one dollars in cash that was in the kitchen drawer, because it was the only money I had that was mine.

Then I turned off the light and walked out.

The back gate was two hundred yards from the house, along a gravel path.

Halfway down it, the panel dropped again.

0.4 percent.

I stopped and put one hand on a hedge.

My fingers had gone cold and my legs felt hollow.

Thin, I thought.

It's getting thin.

I had been alive in this world for three years, and I had never once thought about what it would cost to keep going.

"Take it slowly," the System said. "A host at this level may experience fatigue."

"Is this normal?"

"The floor holds while real feeling for you holds. It does not hold forever."

"Whose feeling?"

"The two targets of your mission."

I laughed, once, an ugly sound.

So that was it.

I had given away everything I had earned from them, and what kept me breathing was whatever Camille and Alana still felt about me tonight.

And Camille was angry.

I reached the gate.

The guard on duty touched his cap and did not meet my eye.

He had been told something, then, by someone.

The gate swung open for me, as it had a thousand times.

I stepped through.

Behind me it closed with a low metal sound.

The panel read 0.3 percent.

A black sedan slid out of the dark on the other side of the road and stopped alongside me.

The rear window slid down.

"Nolan," Dalton said, with a soft, tired smile. "Get in. Let me give you a ride."

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