White residue along the rim.
A faint smear inside.
My jaw flexes.
“Noah drugged you,” I say coldly. “Walked right into the trap I’ve been setting for four years.” I stroke her cheek gently. “You should not be this soft. This slow. This breakable.”
Her head tips into my hand—barely, drunkenly, instinctively.
My chest tightens.
“I’m going to kill him for this,” I murmur. “Not tonight. Not quickly. But I will.”
Her lashes flutter.
She whispers something like don’t but it dissolves, swallowed by whatever’s dragging her under.
I lean closer, lips almost brushing her ear.
“You don’t have to be scared,” I murmur. “He’s gone. He can’t touch you right now.” I brush her hair back again. “But I can.”
Her breath hitches.
“You’re safe,” I whisper, voice low, dark, almost tender in a twisted way. “Not because he tried to make you. Because I’m here.”
She melts slightly against the floor, body giving in the way drugged bodies do—soft, heavy, unresisting.
I slide one arm under her back, the other beneath her knees, lifting her off the rug with slow, deliberate ease.
She sighs—broken and foggy—as her head falls against my shoulder.
Her lips ghost my collarbone when they part.
“Kai…”
The third whisper.
My favourite.
I tighten my grip on her, holding her close, breathing her in.
“You have no idea how long I’ve waited to hear you say that again.”
I stand with her in my arms, the house silent and watching, the darkness pressing close like it wants to listen to every word.
“You and I,” I murmur, carrying her toward the stairs, “we’re going to fix what Noah broke.” I glance at the glass one more time. “And then I’ll break him.”
Her weight in my arms is wrong.
Not heavy.
Not limp.
Not dead.
Just… unguarded.
She hasn’t been unguarded since she was Twenty.
