I don’t need her to.
I close my eyes and let myself believe that, for now, nothing can touch us.
Not my father. Not the Board. Not the Hunt.
Just this.
Just her.
And finally, sleep comes without wrestling my demons first.
I wake up with her head on my chest, my arm numb from her weight. My hand is still wrapped around her hip, fingers splayed wide. She’s breathing slow and steady.
She wakes a minute after me, eyes blinking in the half-dark. She doesn’t smile, but she doesn’t flinch away, either.
She looks up, meets my gaze, and says: “Did you kill him?”
“No.”
She nods, like that’s the answer she expected.
I brush her hair back, tuck it behind her ear. She closes her eyes and just lets me.
When we finally get up, it’s just getting light out. I pull on my pants and grab her shirt off the floor, hand it to her.
She dresses in silence, then turns to face me.
“Will you come back?” she asks.
“I’ll always come back,” I say. And I mean it.
She nods, then kisses me once, quick.
I let myself out, the door clicking behind me.
The hallway is empty, the world outside waiting to be ruined.
But for the first time, I know what I’m fighting for.
Chapter 9: Eve
Iwaketoaband of light, my head hollow and my body aching in the best and worst ways. For a minute, I forget where I am. I listen: slow breaths, quiet. My room. My bed. I move my hand and feel the ghost of Colton’s palm on my skin, the ache of where his teeth found my shoulder, the tenderness where he braced my hips and left a road map of bruises. The sheet is tangled at my knees, the air cold enough to make me shiver, but I don’t pull the blanket up. I want the cold. I want to feel every inch of myself, to be sure I am still here.
The rest of the night comes back in pieces—his voice in my ear, my fingers clawing at his back, the sound I made when he came inside me, a raw animal noise I didn’t know I had in me. I couldtry to forget it, but I don’t want to. I want to hold it close, wrap it up and carry it until everything goes dull again.
A soft, rhythmic slap pulls me from my head. Paper against tile. Something shoves its way under my door and lands with a thud. For a second, I think it’s a prank, one of Vivienne’s girls leaving a tampon grenade or a dead rat, but when I get up to check, my heart spikes.
It’s a formal envelope. Thick, cream, sealed with the Westpoint crest in blue. My name in perfect script, “Miss Eve Allen.” No return address. Just the weight of it, and what it means.
I don’t open it. I let it sit while I get dressed, every movement a negotiation with the soreness in my muscles. In the mirror, I catch my reflection. There’s a new purple fingerprint at my hip, a ring of red above my knee, a mark on my neck that will not fade before lunch. The marks on my wrists are faint, but they stand out like a beautiful bracelet. I want to hide them, but I want to see them too. I want to remember last night wasn’t a dream, that it happened, that I wasn’t just a witness but a participant.
I pull on jeans, careful over the bruises, then a black long-sleeve with holes at the cuffs. It’s tight enough to hide the rest. My hair is a mess, so I braid it, slick it back with water, keep it severe. No makeup. No perfume. I want to be invisible, or at least unremarkable.
Finally, I open the envelope.
Inside: a single sheet, printed and signed.
Miss Allen,
