Emma
The car smells like leather and something clean I don’t recognize. Not air freshener. Not cologne. Whatever it is, it’s familiar and comforting. Then I realize it’s familiar because for the last eighteen months I’ve been sensing that smell everywhere. It’s him.
I knew it the minute my door crashed open and his dark eyes swept over me as I was being pushed into my bedroom against my will. I always knew what John was. I had heard stories. But when your career depends on keeping your mouth shut and your eyes closed… I’m ashamed to say I did it.
I sit in the passenger seat with my hands folded in my lap because I don’t know what else to do with them. My ankle is propped carefully in the footwell, throbbing from the speed I flew down the stairs. The engine is off, but outside, the city hums and breathes in a distant, muted way, like I’ve already stepped beyond its reach.
I don’t look back at the building. I don’t need to.
The man I was afraid of isn’t my fear anymore. Whatever’s happening inside those walls is not my concern. I looked the other way when it came to John for too long. Now I’ll look away as he pays for what he’s done. What he was going to do to me. That certainty settles deep inside me, solid and unshakable, like something heavy finally clicking into place.
The main door to the apartment building opens and I watch as the man who just saved me from John walks through it. He’s dragging my suitcase behind him with one hand, effortless, like it weighs nothing at all. It’s the big one. The one I keep shoved under my bed and have never needed to use since moving out of my parents place six years ago.
My stomach tightens because I know what’s inside.
Not clothes or knick-knacks or any of my belongings.
He opens the trunk and lifts the suitcase without hesitation, despite how heavy it must be.
Then he gets into the driver’s seat and shuts the door, sealing us inside, as the world narrows to just the two of us.
Neither of us speaks.
I don’t look at him right away. I stare straight ahead, at the busy street, the glow of passing headlights sliding over the hood. My heart is still beating too fast, but there’s no panic tangled up in it. Just a strange, humming awareness that feels familiar in a way nothing else ever has.
This is him.
The man from the dark.
The prickle I’ve felt at the base of my spine for eighteen months. The presence that made my skin heat, my breath catch, my body soften for reasons I never understood. I don’t need confirmation. I don’t need explanations.
I know it in my bones.
He starts the engine and pulls away from the curb smoothly, like this is just another decision already made. He doesn’t reach for me. Doesn’t crowd me. Just drives.
Streetlights flicker on and pass over his profile as we move. Strong jaw. Dark hair. Dark eyes. Calm focus. Hands steady on the wheel. There’s blood on his dark cuffs. Not much. Justenough to glisten brown against black. To give the air that coppery tang.
I don’t need to ask what happened.
The city thins out the further we go. Buildings give way to open roads, lights fading until there’s more darkness than glow. With every mile, something inside me loosens. The tight coil I’ve lived with for so long begins to unwind, slow and inevitable.
I realize I’m breathing deeper, my shoulders have dropped, and oddly, I don’t feel watched anymore.
Not in the way that made me ache and doubt and wonder.
I feel seen.
He doesn’t look at me until we’re well beyond the city limits, when the road stretches wide ahead of us, dark and quiet.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
His voice is low. Steady. It doesn’t demand anything from me.
I turn my head then to really look at him. At the man who finally stepped out of the shadows. At the man who didn’t ask for permission but somehow never took what I didn’t want to give. At the man who dismantled my fear without ever touching me first.
I search myself for the panic I should feel. For anything that feels like regret or doubt, but there’s nothing there.
“I am,” I say, surprised by how true it feels the moment it leaves my mouth. “Who are you?”
