“I don’t know,” she replied.
“You do know.” He stood. “You just don’t want to tell me.”
He started towards the door, a certain finality in his stride that told her if she let him leave, she would never see him again. It wasn’t until she popped up and called out to him that it dawned on her that she wanted to.
“You touched my face.”
He stopped in the doorway and faced her. “I touched your face?”
“Right before you said it, you stroked the side of my face. Delicately. Almost like you were touching…a lover. You looked at me like you were seeing me for the first and last time, then you smiled.”
“And you care because of that?”
“I care because you don’t want to die, Gage.” If they’d been anywhere else other than her office with staff right outside, she would have been shouting. “That look you gave me…you don’t want to die. You didn’t see it.” She motioned out the door. “They didn’t see it. I saw it. I was there. I could have been the last person to ever see you alive. Do you know what the odds are that I’d worked that late, parked in that spot, and found you? Do you think you would have been alive if it had been someone else?”
“And you care because of that?” He stalked towards her, his tone sharp and teetering on the edge of anger. “You don’t even know me. Why the fuck do you care?”
“Why the fuck shouldn’t I?” He was close to an entire foot taller than her, but she was in his face, hands balled into fists, whispering at the top of her lungs. “Just because I don’t know you doesn’t mean that you don’t matter. I was supposed to be there last night. I was supposed to save you. Gage, I won’t let you die.”
K. Alex Walker 
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