“When you’re not half-asleep and your nervous system isn’t lying to you.”
I huff a breath that might almost be a laugh. “It feels very convincing.”
“I know.” He reaches out then, resting his hand briefly against my forearm. Grounding. Solid. “That’s why you’re going back to sleep.”
I hesitate.
Not because I don’t want to – because part of me is afraid of what might continue while I’m not conscious.
He reads it anyway.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he says. “And neither are you.”
The words settle something sharp and anxious inside my chest. I nod once, the decision made.
“Okay,” I murmur.
He settles back, deeper into the chair as I turn onto my side, drawing the blankets closer without really thinking about it. Sleep pulls at me again, heavier this time, faster.
As it takes me, one last certainty sinks in, quiet and undeniable.
Whatever they were testing didn’t end when I left.
It learned.
And for now, the safest thing I can do is rest.
ANOTHER DAMN LEASH
Obsessed - Elvis Drew
Bones
The door is shut with the kind of finality that doesn’t pretend to be temporary. Not slammed, not theatrical – just closed, locked, and left alone. The hotel corridor hums faintly around us, lights too bright for the hour, carpet still smelling faintly of smoke no matter how aggressively the staff have tried to scrub it out. Somewhere below us a lift dings, cheerful and obscene, and I catalogue it automatically as proof that the world hasn’t ended just because ours nearly did.
Snow is the first one to lose patience. He doesn’t shout – not with Kayla on the other side of the door – but the tension rolls off him anyway, shoulders tight enough to crack steel. He paces three steps down the corridor, three back, boots whisperingagainst the carpet, and when he turns on me his eyes are sharp with something that isn’t just anger.
“He doesn’t get to shut us out.”
I don’t look up straight away. I’m leaning back against the opposite wall, posture relaxed enough to irritate him on principle. “Did you expect anything less?”
Snow stares at me like I’ve missed the point on purpose. “He locked the door.”
“Yes,” I say evenly, finally meeting his gaze. “And if it were you in there, you’d have done the same. We all would.”
Hatchet shifts his weight a fraction, planting himself closer to the door without comment, broad frame angled just enough that anyone coming down the corridor would have to go through him first. His arms are folded, but not casually – this is restraint, not rest. His eyes stay on the door, unblinking.
Snow scrubs a hand through his hair, frustration sharp enough to taste. “That doesn’t make it right.”
“No,” I agree. “It makes it predictable.”
Honey exhales slowly beside him, gaze flicking from Snow to the door and back again. “He’s not wrong,” he says quietly. “Nightshade was never going to let us in there while she was still…coming back to herself.”
Snow’s mouth twists. “She’s not a fucking object.”
“No,” Honey replies, just as quietly. “She’s a liability with a pulse and half the world hunting her. Which is why he’s doing exactly what we all trained him to do.”
That earns Honey a glare, but Snow doesn’t argue the point. He just turns away again, pacing restarting with renewed violence, like movement is the only thing keeping him from detonating.
