Every step a whisper of pain when I moved. My thigh throbbed with every shift in weight. My ribs sent sharp warnings with each shallow breath. I braced one hand against the wall.
The bathroom looked the same. Too much the same. Marble floors that echoed beneath my feet. Polished chrome taps. Amirror that seemed too large, too cold. No towels out of place. No steam. No signs of anyone but me.
It looked untouched. Preserved. Like no one had been here since I left. Likehehadn’t stepped into this space since the night I ran.
I turned on the shower with shaking fingers. Let the water run too hot. Steam poured from the glass before I even peeled off my clothes.
The hoodie was stiff. Still crusted with old blood. The dried part tugged at my shoulder when I lifted it over my head. The scab there cracked. I winced. Everything else came off slower.
Each movement a negotiation with pain. A bruise bloomed across my thigh—deep and dark and full of silent rage. I stepped into the shower and didn’t look back. The heat hit like punishment.
I gasped, knees buckling, one hand smacking the tile to keep me upright. The water sluiced down my back. Too hot. Too sharp. But I didn’t adjust it. I needed it to hurt.
My skin turned red. My breath hitched. The bruises pulsed. The cuts sang. But I welcomed it. Because it was mine. The first thing that touched me without taking anything.
I slid down the wall. Sat under the stream, arms wrapped around my knees, forehead pressed to wet tile.Tears didn’t come. But it felt like I should have. Like my body was waiting for a release I no longer had access to.
Selene would come. I knew that. She wouldn’t let me slip away—not without extracting everything left.
I was still a tool. Still a threat. Still a failure she hadn’t forgiven. And Wolfe? He hadn’t touched me. Not once. That scared me more than if he had.
I expected fire. Expected a slammed door. A thrown glass. A whispered command that made my knees hit the ground.
Instead?
I got a storage room.
A cold bed.
And the sound of my own breath in an empty house.
Barron had looked at me like I was fragile. Loyal had looked at me like I was already gone. And Wolfe? He hadn’t looked at all.
I tilted my head back into the spray and let the water beat against my closed eyes. Tried to remember the last time I felt clean. Not washed.Clean.Like I hadn’t lied. Like I hadn’t touched something I wasn’t meant to. Like I hadn’t betrayed the only man who ever looked at me like I was his.
But I couldn’t find it. That memory. That version of me. I wasn’t sure she ever existed. I stood up slowly. Turned off the water. The silence in the room felt heavier now. Like the steam had stolen all the oxygen and replaced it with guilt.
The air chilled against my skin as soon as the water stopped. Goosebumps rippled over my shoulders. I reached for a towel. Wrapped it tight around my chest with hands that wouldn’t stop shaking. Then I looked up. And saw myself in the mirror.
I froze. Not because of the bruises. Not because of the dried blood or the dark rings beneath my eyes. Not even because of the split lip. But because—for one awful, gut-wrenching moment—I didn’t recognize my own face.
My eyes looked like mine. But empty. Like the girl behind them had packed up and left, and someone else was wearing her skin.
My hands twitched at my sides. A flicker of instinct. A memory. The phone. Where was it?
The last time I saw it, Wolfe had it in his hand. Broken. Cracked. Blood on the case. He hadn’t given it back. Of course he hadn’t. Was he reading my messages? Tracking Selene’s calls? Did he know what I’d sent? What I hadn’t?
I swallowed hard. The taste of metal lingered. I pulled the towel tighter around my chest and turned away. Didn’t dry off. Didn’t clean the mirror. Didn’t try to fix what was already unrecognizable.
I pulled the hoodie back over damp skin. It stuck at the shoulders. Still stiff from dried blood. Still mine in the worst way. Stillhisin every way that mattered.
I walked back into the hallway. Barefoot. Quiet. The house was asleep. The lights low. Every door closed—except his. The main bedroom.
I didn’t stop. Didn’t knock. Didn’t even brush the handle. But I paused. Just long enough to feel the weight of that door.
The quiet behind it. The fact that he was in there, breathing, alive, close enough to touch?—
And I wasn’t welcome.
