Failed worse than she’ll ever know.
And I swore, if I ever had the chance again, I’d do it differently. Better.
Even if it means hiding. Even if it means watching from a distance, protecting in silence, bleeding where she’ll never see.
I risk another glance.
She’s rubbing grit from her eyes, her fingers trembling slightly. Not from fear. From exhaustion. Her movements are careful, almost reverent, like she doesn’t want to break the moment either.
Her lips part. She doesn’t speak, but her mouth shapes something soft. I don’t need sound to recognize my name in it—not the one the others gave me. The old one. The one from before.
It stings.
And warms.
And hurts.
I swallow back a growl and press my claws into my palms, grounding myself in the pain. It’s real. It’s sharp. It keeps me here.
“Why me?” I hear her whisper, so soft the storm almost swallows it whole.
She isn’t asking me.
She’s asking the air.
But I feel it burrow under my skin, embedding like thornroot.
I want to answer. I want to tell her I don’t know either. That something in her pulled at something in me and now I can’t let go.
That her fire lit the last match in my soul.
That her voice sounds like home.
But I say nothing.
Because my voice would ruin it.
My voice is a weapon.
Instead, I shift slightly, letting the heat of the portable shelter radiate into my limbs. My muscles are still taut, battle-ready, but not for her. Never for her.
She pulls her knees to her chest and rests her chin on them. Her eyes are still open. Watching the dark. Watching me, maybe. Or what she thinks I am.
Not a monster. Not a man.
Something between.
Something she hasn’t run from.
And that—that terrifies me more than anything out there.
Because if she stays...
If she keeps looking at me like that...
I might start believing it.
That I can be something more than a shadow in the caves.
