“I know you think he's a monster.” Anya continues, her tone so kind it's almost cruel to me. “I've thought the same. Then I watch him pour tea for our father because the tremor gets worse at night. I watch him stand outside a door until a terrified man finishes being sick and can talk. I watch him sleep in a chair because he won't leave the person in the bed alone. That's not a monster. That's a man who built a life where people don't die if he can prevent it.”
Sage sits very still. The morning makes a bright shape across the rug. The pine-scented mountain air filters through the cracked window, and the room warms another degree.
“What will he do with me?” Sage asks, almost to herself. “What happens when this is over?”
Anya’s attention drifts toward the doorway. She knows I'm here, but she doesn't betray me, only answers in the same even tone.
“He'll do what is necessary. He always does. Sometimes the necessary thing is also the kind thing. You will help him decide which it is.”
Sage gives a small, unsteady laugh. “I don't think I have that power.”
“You do, but you don’t want it,” Anya replies, her voice warm and certain, “which is why I trust you with it.”
The words settle in me like a match striking dry kindling, quiet at first, then impossible to ignore. I hate that she's right. Vega lifts his head and looks toward the doorway. Sage follows his gaze. Her eyes find me where I stand, half hidden by the edge of the wall and the frame of the clock. She doesn't startle. She doesn't flush or look away as if caught. She simply looks, and a quiet understanding unfolds across her face.
Empathy lives there. Clean and unguarded. No contempt or triumph. It’s not the version I’ve seen in men who think they’ve won because they scored a point off me in a meeting. It’s the kind people carry when they recognize pain they’ve worn themselves, they see the shape of it, and know exactly how it feels.
Heat rakes through me. I hate it instantly. I hate that she looks at me like that, as if I’m a story she could understand if she reads one more page. I hate it more that my chest tightens with the need for her to keep looking. It’s a hunger I do not allow, not even for things that do not matter. For her, it grows without permission, relentless and steady as the stream outside.
Anya rises. She rests a hand lightly on Sage's shoulder and squeezes once before letting go. “I'll find my room. If either of you needs me, you know where I am.”
She passes me in the hall, pausing just long enough to murmur, “Be a person for five minutes,brat.”
Sage straightens when I step into the library. Her sweater sleeves are pushed to her elbows, and there's a crease on her cheek from the pillow that makes her look younger than she is. Vega leans into her legs and blinks at me as if to ask what I plan to do.
“Good morning,” she says, her voice calm but distant.
I cross to the table and take the seat Anya left warm. I look at the untouched pastry and then at Sage. I should ask if she slept, remind her of boundaries, and inform her of the morning schedule, but the words stay locked behind my teeth.
“Sage.” Her name slips out low and rough. “Are you all right?”
Her smile is small and surprising. “I'm breathing.”
It isn’t enough, but it’s more than I deserve. I nod, my gaze sliding past her to the tree line before returning. I want to tell her not to look at me that way. I want to tell her that empathy has no place here, and that whatever part of me she thinks she’s found isn’t something meant to be touched. Instead, I reach for the one thing I can offer without coming apart.
“Hope can call you at nine. I adjusted the security on the line.”
Her eyes lift, bright with gratitude. “Thank you,” she says, the words quick and sincere.
“Don't thank me.” I don't know how to be a person, not even for five minutes. “Eat. You won't function if you don't eat.”
“Is that your doctor's advice?”
“It’s my advice.” I rake a hand through my hair, keeping my eyes on hers.
She takes a bite of the pastry to prove a point and then another because it's good. I watch the way she relaxes as the sugar hits her blood, and almost smile at the foolishness of it. Vega thumps his tail twice, and I look away before she can find the softness creeping up my throat.
“I'll be in the office.” I rise quickly because I don't trust myself to stay.
She nods once. “Tell your sister I said thank you for the talk.”
“I heard.”
“I know.” Her fingers skim the edge of the plate, tracing the rim in slow, absent circles.
I incline my head and leave the library. Vega trots after me a few steps and then returns to her side of his own accord. It should irritate me, but instead it tempers me in a way I can't justify.
At the office door, I stop and set my palm against the frame. I can still feel her eyes on me, the way people claim sunlight lingers on the skin after you step inside. It's not accurate, but it's close. I draw a slow breath and go to work because the world expects it of me and because I don't know what to do if I don't.
