“Where…”
My voice cracked. It tasted like old pennies.
“Where am I?”
Loyal didn’t answer. Didn’t twitch. Didn’t even blink. Like I was already in the ground and he was just waiting for the dirt to settle.
Tears pressed hot behind my eyes. Not grief.
Shame.
Burning, acidic shame that coated the back of my throat like bile. I looked away. Blinked them back. Closed my eyes again like I could undo this by slipping away.
But sleep didn’t come. Only stillness. Only the quiet weight of being watched by someone who had nothing left to say.
It didn’t feel like waking. It felt like being studied. Like surveillance disguised as mercy. I drifted. Pain softened to a dull ache.
My breathing leveled out. Shallow. But steady. I let myself blur. Let the world smudge at the corners. But before I slipped under again, I felt it?—
A weight at my side.
Blankets.
Someone pulling them higher.
Slow.
Deliberate.
Fingers—not rough, not gentle—tucking the edge beneath my arm. Up to my collarbone. A gesture. A ritual. Not affection. But presence.
I didn’t open my eyes. Didn’t ask who it was. I already knew. I just lay there, letting the warmth wrap around my throat like a thread. And I let the shame settle in my chest like a stone I knew I’d never lift again.
When I woke again?—
Loyal was gone.
But I wasn’t alone.
I knew it before I opened my eyes. The room was different. Not louder. Not warmer. Just... heavier.
The air shifted. Bent around something larger than breath. I opened my eyes. And Wolfe was there. Standing at the foot of the bed. Still. Unmoving. Like he’d always been there. Like I was the one who had just arrived.
His gaze didn’t roam my body. Didn’t trail my bandages or trace the blood dried at the corner of my mouth. He wasn’t checking me. He wasreadingme. Measuring what was left. Like he already knew what I gave them. And what it cost him.
I didn’t speak. Couldn’t. My throat closed. My lungs caught on the inhale. My ribs warned me against anything too sudden. But it wasn’t the pain that kept me still. It was him.Wolfe.
His name rang in my chest like a memory wrapped in razors. He didn’t speak. Didn’t twitch. Didn’t let me have even that small mercy.
His coat hung open. Dark. Heavy. His shirt beneath it matched—no tie, no buttons fastened high. Just black on black. His hair was slicked back, careless, like he’d done it hours ago and then forgotten to exist in the mirror afterward.
His hands were in his pockets. His shoulders were relaxed. Not because he was calm. Because he wasresolved.He wasn’t here for answers. He wasn’t here to rescue me. He wasn’t here to punish me.
He was here because I made a choice—and now I had to live inside it.
Or not.
He looked like silence. Like he wasn’t angry. Like he wasfinished.And that was worse.
