through this. They had done her a powerful injustice. He and Menes. It was their calling to make these sacrifices in the name of his people, and she should never have been involved.
“Jackson, they’re going to think you’re a murderer,” she said on a rush of injured words. “How can you let that happen? Can’t you just call or … or …”
“We’ve been over this,” he said gently, something inside of him filled with warmth, knowing that in a moment like this it was everyone else she was worried about. He had done her yet another injustice by ever thinking her to be a cold and emotionless cog in the wheels of bureaucracy. In truth she spent all of her time worrying about everyone else. He wondered where she fit her own needs in her grand scheme of things. “As of today Jackson Waverly will have disappeared. He will cease to exist. It doesn’t matter what anyone thinks of him because he will, for all intents and purposes, die the death he was supposed to have died that night three weeks ago.
“You ask me why I didn’t leave right away? Because I needed the time to grieve one of the biggest losses anyone can ever experience. The loss of their entire identity as they once knew it to be. I know that the important parts of who I am come with me, but that doesn’t stop me from grieving what once was mine and now must be let go of. I’m only sorry I didn’t leave sooner. I thought I was completely anonymous and that it was safe for me to stay … but I was wrong and I’m going to have to live with that knowledge and the knowledge of what it might have cost Leo in the process.” He had been speaking in a calm, steady voice, but it broke on Leo’s name as guilt threatened to swamp him. They must have known Leo was the closest thing he had to family … outside of Docia, who was a Bodywalker and very well protected. It had very likely cost certainly ag.his friend his life, because Leo would rather die than ever give up any information about him. The funny thing was, Leo had been out of the country for the past couple of weeks. He hadn’t even had any idea where Jackson was. He certainly hadn’t known about him Blending with Menes.
Marissa was looking at him with soft, considering eyes, the blue of them so warm, in spite of it being such a cool color. But her eye color was closer to the blue at the center of a flame, like when a Bunsen burner is lit and it roars with its little storm of fire on the tip. And then, as intransigent as the wind, they would turn toward green, hovering on the brink of it, but not quite achieving it.
“You’ve come so far since I first began counseling with you,” she said, her tone so genuine that he didn’t feel she was patronizing or even doctoring him. It was as if she were a friend, and not a doctor. “When we first met you were so determined to not acknowledge your grief. And now look at you. You’ve come to understand you’re allowed to mourn, and more important, to let go enough to move on. You were so determined to punish yourself, to blame yourself not only for Chico’s death but for replacing him with Sargent. So much so that you wouldn’t allow yourself to connect with him the way you needed to.” She smiled softly at him. “Now you love him so much you can’t even let him go.”
She nodded toward the dog sleeping soundly on the floor near the fireplace.
“I’m stealing him, you know. If I’m going to be a murderer, I may as well be a thief besides.” He frowned a little. “You know, three weeks ago, I would have never done something like this. I would rather have died than let someone think ill of me or accuse me of a crime, never mind flat-out commit one. But … maybe it’s because of Menes’s influence, that I am willing to do something because it is right and not just because it’s the rules. Sargent belongs with me. He depends on me just as I depend on him. And I have no intention of leaving the department ill equipped. They will receive a donation of two new pups from an anonymous donor to