The ability to get what I want.
I rub both hands over my face, trying to push the thought down.It doesn't move.
Doesn't even budge.
The Bible sits on the coffee table.I pick it up just to have something in my hands other than a weapon.I hold onto it and close my eyes, listening to the rain, the shower, and a neighbor downstairs hollering.
The sounds blur together—rain against glass, water through pipes, someone's muffled anger blending through the floorboards.Normal sounds.The kind that used to ground me.
Now they just remind me how far I've drifted.
When Adena comes out, her face is washed free of makeup, her hair is wet, and she's dressed in nothing but her shirt and silk robe.
She eyes me, the Bible, almost walks past me, then surprises me by sitting.Close.
Close enough that when she moves, her bare knee brushes mine.
She leans in and flips the old Bible open to 2 Kings, trails a finger down the thin page, and stops halfway down.Her fingertip taps once, and then she looks at me like she wants me to read it.
After what I did, I don’t hesitate to oblige.
Don't be afraid—those who are with us are more than those who are with them.
She's doing it again, showing me kindness I don’t deserve.
Offering hope I have no right to.
When her fingers slide between mine, I lock onto her.Not just to her goodness—but to the only thing in my life that doesn’t feel like a lie.
Adena
The room is dim, early light filtering through the blinds.Sometime in the night, Jagger wound up holding me in his arms.
I lie there, watching the light catch the scars on his knuckles, feeling the slow, heavy rise and fall of his chest against my back.
I’m supposed to be his partner in a job, not his sanctuary.I’m not supposed to be acting as his shield while the rest of the world waits for him to wake up and be a monster again.
But I am.
Temporarily at least.
His phone explodes on the nightstand, making me jump.
With a curse, he jerks awake, rolling away to grab it before the second ring."Yeah."
Relieved to escape, I use the moment to slip out, grab my robe, use the bathroom, and head for the kitchen.
By the time the coffee's made, I'm sitting at the table trying not to think about how his arm felt around me—how natural it felt to wake up like that.
He appears in the doorway—jeans, no shirt, bare feet, hair mussed, jaw shadowed with stubble.
He takes the coffee I poured."Marquez has work for you.Elena's restaurant—she needs the books cleaned before the health inspector shows."
"When?"
"Paco picks you up in twenty."
I take a sip."I need food."
