Bones’ eyes held mine, steady as gravity. “You’re hurt. You fought. You survived.” His voice didn’t rise, didn’t harden. It softened. A dangerous softness, because it saw everything. “That’s not gross.”
A tremor rolled through me so violently that my arms wrapped around my stomach before I even realized I’d moved. “But I—” My voice cracked. “You don’t understand. I pissed myself. And I threw up. There’s—” My breath stuttered. “It’s on me. I can feel it.”
He lifted our joined hands, brushing his thumb along my knuckles again in that same slow, deliberate circle that had kept me tethered through the last moments of hell. “Grace.” His tone was a low command wrapped in velvet. “Look at me.”
I forced my eyes upward. The intensity in his gaze—steady, immovable—made my lungs seize, but in a different way than Ignacio had. Bones’ gaze held no ownership, no expectation, nohunger except the kind that meant he would burn the world down before he let anything else touch me.
“Nothing on you,” he murmured, “diminishes you. Not this. Not anything he did.”
My mouth parted, but no words came out. My voice had abandoned me again. Bones moved first, shifting closer—not touching more, not crowding, just moving into my space with the same quiet confidence he used approaching live explosives.
“Can you stand?” he asked.
I shook my head quickly, panic flaring sharp. “No—no, I—Bones, I can’t get it on you. I smell. I’m?—”
He didn’t let me pull away. His fingers slipped beneath my hand and curled around it, firm, anchoring. “Grace. Look at me.” I did. Barely. “You could be covered in blood and mud and ash,” he said quietly, “and I’d still touch you.”
My pulse stuttered, a shock of heat rolling up my spine before I could smother it. He wasn’t flirting. He wasn’t trying to soothe me. He was stating a fact as solid as the floor beneath me.
“You’re shaken,” he continued. “And you’re allowed to be. But don’t mistake that for weakness.”
“But I—” My voice cracked again. “Bones, I’m disgusting.”
“Not to me.” The way he said it—leveled straight at me, voice low and steady—made something inside me unravel. My breath shuddered. My fingers tightened around his almost desperately.
For a long moment, he let that settle between us.
Then Bones shifted, rising to one knee. His hand slid from mine only so he could reach up and brush the hair back from my face—so gently it made tears burn behind my eyes.
“You can lean on me,” he said. “Or I can carry you. Your choice.”
The tears threatened harder. “I don’t want to get anything on you.”
He gave a slow, almost imperceptible shrug, his lips beginning to pull into a faint, devastating half-smile. “It washes off.”
I let out a shaking breath that was almost a laugh. Almost.
Bones held out both hands this time, palms open—not pulling, not pushing. Waiting.
My body shook so hard I wasn’t sure I’d be able to move. But I reached for him. Carefully. Slowly. As though the movement itself might crack me in half.
His fingers wrapped around mine, warm and steady, and he guided me upward, supporting my weight easily.
My legs almost gave out. Instantly, his arm slid around my waist.
“I’ve got you,” he murmured, voice so close to my ear it sent a different kind of shiver down my spine.
I didn’t protest this time. I couldn’t. Something in me gave in—not to fear, but to safety. To him.
When I finally managed to whisper, “Where are we going?” Bones’ grip tightened just slightly.
“To clean you up,” he said. “Somewhere quiet. Somewhere safe.”
Behind us, Ignacio lay unconscious on the floor. But Bones didn’t look at him. He looked at me—at every tremble, every breath, every inch of shaking, messy humanity I was trying to hide.
“At our pace,” he added softly. “Not his. Not the plan’s. Ours.”
My throat tightened. My fingers dug into his shirt and I let myself lean fully into his strength.
