His mouth twitched. “You’re impossible.”
“Comes with the job,” I muttered.
Simon looked like he wanted to argue, but instead he just nodded, then reached out and adjusted the bandage at my ribs one last time. His fingertips lingered just a little too long.
It wasn’t enough to be called a touch, but it burned anyway.
When he finally pulled back, he said softly, “Thank you for trusting me, even a little.”
“I didn’t say I trust you,” I muttered.
“I know.” His smile was small, sad. “But you didn’t kill me either.”
“Yet.”
He laughed then. It was a quiet, breathy sound that did something strange to my chest. I turned away, staring at the cracked wall so I wouldn’t have to see the way his eyes softened when he looked at me.
Because if I did, I might start to forget why I was supposed to hate him. And that, more than the pain, more than the blood, scared the hell out of me.
5
KIT
When I woke,I didn’t know where I was.
For a second, everything was sound and blur. The groan of old timber, the rustle of something moving close by, the taste of copper thick in my mouth.
My first instinct was to reach for my knife. My hand twitched toward my belt, and pain shot through my side so sharp it tore the breath from me.
That was enough to bring the world back into focus. The house. The fight. The blood. Simon.
I blinked against the dim light. The air smelled faintly of smoke and damp wood. A weak fire burned in the old hearth across the room, its glow trembling over cracked tiles and broken furniture.
The flames were small but steady, like someone had been feeding them carefully. There he was, sitting a few feet away, cross-legged on the floor, his back to the wall.
Simon’s head was tilted down, his hair falling forward as he stared at something in his hands. My knife. The one I’d tried to gut him with earlier.
For a heartbeat, panic flared in me. Then I realized he wasn’t holding it like a threat. He was cleaning it, running a strip of cloth along the blade with slow, meticulous care.
Every few seconds, he’d glance at the fire, then back at the weapon, as if making sure it still caught the light. My pulse thudded unevenly.
He looked different in the firelight. Softer, somehow. Less like something out of a nightmare and more like a person.
The glow made his skin look warm instead of cold, turned the silver of his eyes to liquid mercury. There was a streak of dried blood across his temple, mine, probably.
The collar of his shirt was torn, exposing the sharp line of his collarbone. He didn’t look like a killer. He looked tired.
My voice came out rough, rasping. “You’re still here.”
Simon’s head lifted instantly. His eyes snapped to mine, and for a moment, all the tension that had been coiled in him seemed to loosen. “You’re awake.”
“Didn’t answer my question.”
He hesitated, then set the knife aside. “You were bleeding. I couldn’t just leave you.”
I huffed out a dry laugh that hurt. “You could’ve.”
“I didn’t want to.”
