‘Yes, Tia. Our son. You don’t get to shut me out.’
It was the sudden silence that scraped at him, he realised. The awful, bleak, dangerous lack of sound as Tia stared at him wordlessly.
And this time when she spoke, it was the careful, quiet, deadly way she controlled her voice that made the hairs on the back of his arms stand to attention.
‘I do. Or, at least, I will do everything within my earthly power to do so.’
‘Say again?’ His tone was lethal.
‘I won’t agree to you telling Seth who you are if you go out there.’
‘You’re threatening me.’ He was incredulous.
‘I’m warning you,’ she corrected. And then, without warning, a sadness crept into her words.
‘You aren’t listening to me. I told you what I went through with my mum. With you. I can’t put my child through that, Zeke. I won’t.’
Tia stopped, choking on her words and her tears, unable to go on.
She didn’t need to. Zeke could hear them, loud and clear, and destructive, echoing around his head.
He had no idea how long they stood there, glaring at each other, her stifled sounds slowly subsiding.
‘This is who I am, Tia. This is what I do. It gives me purpose.’
‘You have Z-Black,’ she croaked. ‘Look to the Horizon.’
‘I told you, they aren’t enough.’
‘Seth should be enough. He is four years old.’ She dropped her head, the whispered words barely audible. ‘He won’t cope with losing his father. He won’t understand it.’
‘We’ll explain it to him...’ Zeke began, but he already knew that he never would.
‘I
don’t think I can understand it...’ she choked out. ‘You were the one, Zeke. You were always the one. There has never been anyone else for me but you, and there never will be.’
Had his chest exploded, right there and then? It felt as if it should have. He had no idea how he managed to stay calm.
‘Is that so?’
She swallowed before saying anything more.
‘But I can’t be with you, Zeke. Not if you go back out on missions again.’
Her words were like a hidden propeller slicing into him again and again. Wounding him, damaging him. He was caught in the momentum and there was no escape.
‘Tia, you have to understand why this is so important.’
‘I do,’ she gasped, as though fighting for every breath. ‘I truly do. But you also have to understand that we can’t lose you, Zeke.’
Her words struck him, their impact feeling much the same as the time he’d been struck in the Kevlar-protected chest by a shotgun round. How he’d stayed upright was beyond him.
‘You won’t.’
‘You can’t guarantee that.’
‘And I can’t guarantee that I wouldn’t walk out of that door and be hit by a speeding motorist.’