Her breath hitched.
I lifted the towel and touched it to her cheek—slow, deliberate. She made a small sound, too soft to classify. Not pain. Not fear. Something closer to relief.
“I don’t want—” she tried again. “I don’t want you to have to clean me.”
“You think this bothers me?” I asked, gently wiping away the dried edge of vomit at the corner of her mouth.
Her lashes fluttered. She tried to pull back; I followed, keeping the touch steady, controlled.
“I’m dirty,” she whispered. The shock was still visible in her blue eyes, her pupils huge.
“You fought,” I corrected. “You survived. That’s not dirty.”
I kept working—jawline, temple, the edge of her neck. Every motion precise. No rush. No hesitation. I’d cleaned blood off teammates in worse conditions. I’d cleaned worse off myself.
But this wasn’t about sanitation. This was about giving her back control, one inch at a time.
“Lift your chin,” I said.
She did. Shaky. Trusting me in spite of herself.
Warm water caught the scars on my knuckles as I worked. She noticed. She always did. And when her gaze traced the line of my hand, something inside her steadied for half a second.
“That’s it,” I murmured.
Her breathing evened out by degrees. Not steady. Not calm. But no longer the edge of collapse.
When I finished with her face, I set the towel aside and reached for another. “We’re going to take this slow. I’ll talk through every step. You stop me if anything feels wrong.”
She nodded, small and tight.
But when I reached for the first button on her blouse, her hand shot out and grabbed mine. Not to stop me—just to hold on.
Her grip was desperate. And warm. And shaking.
“I don’t want to be alone,” she said, voice breaking.
“You’re not alone.” I leaned in, close enough for her to feel the heat of my breath. “And I’m not going anywhere.”
Her fingers curled tighter around mine.
Outside in the hallway, a distant floorboard creaked—Voodoo or Alphabet moving through the sweep.
I ignored it. The only threat that mattered was already unconscious. The only timeline that mattered was the one in this room.
“Bones…?” she whispered.
“Yeah.”
Her eyes flicked to the door, then back to me. “Is Ignacio still?—?”
“He’s not waking up anytime soon,” I said, pocketing the name Ignacio. “And he’s not getting near you again.”
Some of the tension drained from her shoulders.
“Good,” she breathed. Then her eyes locked onto mine, sudden and sharp. “Don’t let him die.”
A request. No—an order wrapped in fear.
