Five days ago I was studying for finals, trying to decide whether to buy my sister a thoughtful gift or a gift card and call it a day.Five days ago I was safe enough to be bored by my own life.Now I was rinsing blood off a man who had murdered my family because I refused to let him die.The absurdity should have broken me, but the shock of the past week had calcified into something harder.I couldn’t afford to fall apart anymore.
My mind drifted whether I wanted it to or not.I saw the closet, my fingers digging into my phone while shots echoed down the hall.I saw Gabriel opening that door, blank emotion in his eyes while he decided whether I lived or died.I saw the cabin—the rope around my wrists, the plate of food shoved toward me, the careful distance he forced between us as if he didn’t trust himself.Then the firelight, the kiss that neither of us had meant to start, the moment where everything that should have been impossible became unavoidable.
The memories no longer felt like things I’d lived.They felt like things I’d lost.The girl in that closet had died with the rest of my family.The woman kneeling in a decaying church, tending the wounds of their killer, was someone new and I hadn’t figured out yet whether she terrified me.
Water dripped steadily from the broken pipe in the back, each drop echoing through the empty sanctuary with a rhythm that worked its way under my skin.Drip.Pause.Drip.Pause.It reminded me of a heartbeat or a countdown, something measuring time while I pretended time wasn’t running out.
Then Gabriel’s voice broke the silence.“No.Please, I—didn’t mean to.”
His eyes were closed but darting rapidly beneath the lids, trapped in dreams or memories he couldn’t escape.His skin burned under my palm when I checked his forehead, too hot even in the bitter cold of the sanctuary.Sweat collected at his temples and his fingers twitched like he was trying to defend himself from something that wasn’t here.
“Vincent, please.”The words came out fractured and terrified, nothing like the man who had fought off trained killers hours ago.“I’ll do better.Don’t—please don’t.”
It hit like a punch.He wasn’t here with me.He was a boy again, facing punishment from a man who’d broken him into obedience piece by piece.I touched his face, not gentle enough to be tender but firm enough to try to anchor him.“Gabe.You’re safe.It’s me.”
His eyes opened but didn’t settle at first.They scanned the church like he was tracking threats, routes, probabilities.Then they landed on me and the change was instant.Recognition softened his expression and relief loosened tension from his shoulders.“Mia.”He exhaled my name like it was permission to breathe.His hand found my wrist, holding on as if he needed to prove I hadn’t vanished.“You’re real.”
“I’m real,” I said, and didn’t pull away.“We escaped.You’re hurt, but I’m not letting you go.”
He tried to keep his attention on me but his consciousness wavered.“Hurt you,” he murmured.“Hurt so many people.Can’t stop hurting people.”
I wanted to argue, to push back against the belief that he was nothing but damage walking.But he was already fading again and I couldn’t afford to lose focus.Words wouldn’t stop blood loss.So I kept working—cleaning, rewrapping, applying pressure, ignoring the ache in my back and the stiffness in my hands.Time slipped by in that strange elastic way it had in the cabin, marked only by the changing angle of light that filtered through stained glass in fractured colors across the stone floor.
Eventually, his breathing shifted.The fever lost its edge.His skin cooled beneath my touch.I didn’t let myself celebrate anything, not until his eyes opened again and he was actually present behind them.When our gazes met, there was a clarity there that almost hurt to look at.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.“For all of it.For your family.For the cabin.For pulling you into this.I’m sorry, Mia.”
I should have accepted the apology like it mattered.I should have told him it wasn’t enough.Instead the words came out stripped bare.“I can’t hate you anymore.”
His breath caught, but I kept going because once I started, I couldn’t stop.“I should.I know that.I should hate you for the rest of my life.I should want you dead the way I want them back.But I don’t.I can’t.I think—” My voice fractured even though I tried to hold it steady.“I think I love you.”
The silence afterward felt like a living thing.His expression broke open—shock first, then something rawer, something that looked like hope and grief fighting for space in the same moment.His hand wrapped around mine again and this time his grip wasn’t weak at all.
“You shouldn’t,” he said softly, voice rough with emotion.“You shouldn’t love me.I don’t deserve—”
“I know,” I cut in before he could list every reason.“I know you don’t deserve it.I know it doesn’t make sense.I know there’s no universe where this is right.But it’s real.And I don’t want you to die.”
His eyes glimmered with something that made my chest tighten.“I love you too.”The words came out like confession and surrender and truth all at once.“I don’t know when it happened.But I do.And I’m sorry for that too.”
I let out a broken laugh.“We’re a disaster.”
“Yeah,” he whispered, a ghost of a smile touching his mouth.“We really are.”
The stained glass scattered dawn across us—blue and red and gold painting his skin, my fingers, the blood-soaked bandages, the wreckage of the sanctuary.I leaned down and kissed him because there was nowhere else for the moment to go.His hand came up shakily to my face and the salt of my tears mixed with the metallic taste of dried blood and something that felt like need and hope and fear tangled together.When I pulled back, the way he looked at me made my breath catch—like I was something steady in a world that had never given him anything steady before.
“Rest,” I whispered, keeping my hand against his as his eyes fluttered shut.“I’ve got you.”
He exhaled, and this time the sleep that claimed him looked like surrender rather than escape.I didn’t move.I stayed right there beside him, holding his hand while the light through the windows grew stronger, and pretended the world outside wasn’t hunting us.For this moment, he was alive and I was with him, and nothing else mattered enough to take that away.
Colored light painted the walls when I woke, deep ruby and thin bands of blue spilling over cracked plaster.For a few heartbeats I did not remember the cabin, the fire, or the men who had tried to kill us.My mind surfaced slowly, through aches in muscles, stiff joints, and the faint ache between my eyes.Then I turned my head and saw Gabriel beside me on the pew, his chest rising and falling in steady breaths that no longer rasp.The fever sheen had faded from his skin, leaving him pale but present, alive in a way he had not been the night before.
At some point I had fallen asleep with my hand tangled in his, exhaustion finally dragging me under after hours of tending wounds and bargaining silently with a God I was not sure listened.Morning had arrived and both of us still breathed.The simple truth of that settled in my chest like a fragile, unfamiliar warmth.Not quite joy, not exactly relief.Something closer to hope, small and stubborn, refusing to die.
I eased my hand from his and stood carefully, every movement sending small protests through my body.Sleep on a wooden pew did not count as rest, no matter how grateful I felt for it.The sanctuary looked different in full daylight, less haunted and more forgotten.Broken pews leaned at odd angles, some missing whole sections of seats.Water stains climbed the walls in irregular patterns, dark patches where time and neglect had seeped through the roof.The space did not feel holy anymore, not in the way churches were supposed to.It felt abandoned by whoever had once believed enough to fill these benches.
As I walked the perimeter, details emerged from shadow.One side room held old seat cushions piled in a corner, moths having claimed most of the fabric but the stuffing still mostly intact.Dusty hymnals slumped in a warped bookcase, their spines cracked and pages yellowed, titles barely legible through grime.Near a half-collapsed closet I found a blanket bunched beneath rubble, the fabric musty and stained but still thick enough to hold warmth.Someone had used this place before us, searching for shelter from whatever waited beyond these walls.They had moved on and left scraps behind.I gathered what I could carry and brought everything back to where Gabriel slept.
The cushions became a makeshift bed when I spread them near the largest intact stained glass window.Not luxurious, but softer than wood and wide enough for both of us.The blanket went on top, a barrier between our skin and the chill seeping up from stone.As I arranged everything, the intention behind my movements became clear even to me.I was not just reorganizing debris.I was building something that felt almost like a home, even if it would hold us for hours rather than years.A corner of the world where we could rest and breathe without gunfire or snow or blood.
