Tabula Rasa

Part 2

Calina woke up when the floor disappeared.

The last thing she remembered was sitting on the kitchen tiles, back propped up against the cabinets as she finished her beer. The living room was littered with the fallout from their fight - smashed glass on the floor, furniture in pieces - and neither of them had had the energy to clean it up. So in silent agreement, they'd stayed in the kitchen after 'introducing' themselves. Calina had taken the weight off her throbbing knee and Matthew had joined her on the floor, his long legs bracketing hers as they sat opposite each other.

"Are you able to talk about what happened?" he'd asked. "I don't want to push you, but I need to know more details. I need to know what the danger is."

His voice had been gentle and hesitant - and she didn't blame him for his caution. He must have been worried that she'd break down again if she relived the experience. But there wasn't any risk of that tonight - she still felt strangely numb, the raw fragility of earlier replaced by a detached calm, like a veneer of paint over a crumbling facade.

A temporary fix.

Eventually the emotions would break through again, and she'd have to deal with what had happened tonight, but she wasn't ready yet.

And she'd never be ready to share all the details with Matt.

So she lied.

And she used his concern and his compassion against him. "I...I don't feel up to talking about it," she told him. "Not yet. But you're not in any danger from me. Not anymore. They can't activate the serum remotely, so I'm not going to suddenly turn on you again."

Matt gave her a small smile. "I wasn't worried about me being in danger. I wanted to know how much danger you're in."

"Oh." There was that compassion again. And the selfless valour that made up so much of Matt's character. She hated herself for taking advantage of those traits. For manipulating him and lying to him mere moments after their 'fresh start'. But the alternative - sharing the unedited, unsanitised truth about what she'd done in her apartment - would destroy this tentative, fledgling...thing...between them.

He would never look at her the same way, knowing she was a killer by choice. Regardless of the fact that she'd had just seconds to make her choice; regardless of the fact that her mind had been slipping away and her freedom - and the lives of others - had been on the line, she had made the conscious decision to end a life.

And she feared Matt would hate her for it.

It made her a coward. A selfish coward.

But she'd just have to live with that.

"Yelena is much more concerned about the threat than I am," she explained. "I don't believe they're coming for me. I don't think they even know where I am."

"That's good. But you should lay low for a while anyway. Just as a precaution."

She nodded, then changed the subject. She wanted to steer the conversation to safer territory - and away from her quagmire of lies. "Tell me about today."

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"Distract me. Tell me about the trial. How did the closing arguments go?"

"Foggy did a great job. This case always felt like a long shot, but I'm actually feeling optimistic. The prosecution could never prove a motive, and their cross-examination of our toxicology expert was weak. They..." As Matt recounted his triumph in court, the words - spoken in that lovely, rich tone of his - turned indistinct; they became a background hum, a soothing track that lulled her into oblivion...