That we shouldn’t rush to fill the silence. Because it’s in those quietmoments where we find these critical beats needed to experience a piece as a whole.
When her heart stopped beating, when I could no longer hear the sweet, melancholic refrain of her tune, fearing I’d never experience the next note—that single, devastating silence laid me bare.
And it’s in this fraught silence now, the anticipation thrumming through my veins, that I carry Collins toward the towering university.
There’s a hidden sub-level beneath the observatory, an abandoned sector sealed off decades ago. The place where my darkest secrets are kept. This is where I take her, to this shadowed and haunted part of myself. Waiting, with bated breath, to hear the next notes, to finally unravel the whole piece.
The corridor is mercifully empty. Everyone still in attendance at the symposium. A taut stillness presses in as I carry her past the facility threshold and into the low-lit seclusion of the telescope room.
Her arms drape around my neck, her skin like fire against mine. The softness of her held against the hard lines of me, my muscles strained as her mouth tucks close to the hollow of my throat, driving every sane and rational thought from my head—compelling me to move faster toward the unmarked wall.
My molars grind until my jaw aches as I’m forced to release her—freezing, shivering—reluctantly lowering her feet to the floor. “Just for a moment,” I say, voice gruff.
I peel open the front of my damp shirt and press my palm to the concealed, embedded panel. The scanner activates, reading the intricate celestial map inked across my sternum, an encryption of constellations and astronomical coordinates I tattooed myself. It’s a code I alter every month to ensure I’m the only one who can gain access.
Until now.
The lock disengages with a hiss, and the heavy door parts open.
If Collins is wary, she doesn’t let it show. What she said on the shore still infects my mind:somewhere safe. This secret sanctuary is the only refuge I have to offer her. Secluded, protected. Untouched by outsiders and contamination. And right now, I’m desperately hoping it’s safe enough to keep the intrusive urges held at bay.
She’s fearful of something, but it’s not me lifting her back into my arms, or the muted click of the door sealing behind us as I descend the spiral staircase into the dark depths.
I curl her closer, trying to banish the chill from her body. The relief I still feel at war with the creeping unease simmering just beneath.
Soon, concrete encloses us, the air of the lower level colder, denser, infused with the hum of equipment. Dim lighting spills across the floor, revealing the obsessive order of my private space. Minimalistic furniture arranged in precise angles. Stone walls covered in rows of star charts and spectral maps. In the adjoining lab, the computing array housed with metallic racks. Screens calculating quantum entanglement entropy and waveform simulations.
I pause only briefly to grab a bottled water, my only desire to get her hydrated and warm. I twist off the cap for her. “Drink this,” I say, heading straight to the bathroom.
The light flicks on as soon as I enter the enclosed room, and I feel her flinch. “Dim light,” I command, and the sconce along the concrete wall lowers into a soft glow.
I free a hand to reach into the shower, holding her protectively with one arm as I lift the nozzle and adjust the temperature. When I’m finally forced to release her completely, she stands close, one arm wrapped around her waist, barely holding her torn, soaked blouse together. Her other hand trembles slightly as she brings the waterto her lips, taking slow sips, eyes downcast beneath heavy lashes.
My gaze drops to the bruises encircling her wrists. The evidence of her struggle and my damning failure to protect her. Self-loathing is a vicious, building fire beneath my flesh, seeking an outlet. I’m shaking with it.
I refuse to look directly at her, aware that the instant I do, this tenuous tether that’s kept me from coming undone will snap. The boundary has been crossed. There’s no return, no escape. There’s only the agony that flays me deeper every second I’m not touching her.
A lightclinksounds as she sets her silver case on the concrete counter, the one she’s clung to since the beach. Somehow, managing not to lose it to the rip currents, as though her life depends on it. After watching her slip a single tablet onto her tongue, and the visible relief that quickly followed, I loathe that it might.
I rake an unsteady hand through my wet hair, fingers still numb from the cold—but not numb enough to dampen the lingering feel of her. I submerge my hand in the rain of water to test the warmth, and the words leave my mouth unfiltered. “You can’t swim, or…” I trail off, the question implied.
Her silence strains my fraying composure, muscles corded tight until I hear her draw a breath.
“It’s not that I can’t. It’s that I shouldn’t,” she says, throwing similar words I once said to her right back at me, her hollow tone scraping something raw inside my chest. A bite of anger firms my jaw. “It’s the exertion,” she adds, nearly inaudible.
My throat closes, and a coarse acknowledgement works free with a grunt.
Regardless of what my algorithm predicted, I didn’t think she’d charge straight toward the fucking ocean. Since she led me to believe she feared the water, I thought?—
My head drops, eyes squeezing shut against the building pressure. I didn’t know exactly how she’d end up in that location. But out of all the possibilities, that’s not how I imagined it. With the visceral fear eroding my reason, clearly, I wasn’t thinking at fucking all.
“Cold shock,” she explains, breaking into my tangled thoughts. “Water temperatures in the sixties…it causes?—”
“Increased blood pressure. Incapacitation. Rapid heart rate.” I thrust the glass door open a little too forcefully, the abruptbangmaking her flinch. I turn and reach for her, grasping her by the slim dip of her waist and lifting her easily. Her hands brace against my biceps as I step us both into the shower under the warm spray, before retreating a safe distance.
She shivers, running a hand over her arm, blinking against the steady stream as briny seawater rinses away. An immediate flush of color returns to her skin, where I can make out the pattern of light freckles high on her cheeks, and it loosens the knot lodged in my throat.
My gaze sweeps the soft planes of her beautiful face, down the column of her neck, inspecting every scrape and bruise that mars her—until I land on the vulnerable hollow beneath her collarbone, where an incision scar runs between her breasts.
