Her body tenses under my arm. I tighten my hold just enough to remind her she’s not alone. I grit my teeth so hard my jaw aches.
“He said it was because he cared,” she whispers. “That he was just looking out for me. That nobody else would ever love me the way he did.” Her voice wavers, and I feel it then. The old damage. The way those words still have teeth.
“Then he started getting mean,” she says. “Little things at first. Comments. Jokes that weren’t really jokes. Ways of reminding me I should be grateful he was with me.”
My hand slides up to her hair, threading through it gently. “You didn’t deserve any of that,” I murmur, low and steady.
She nods like she hears me, but I don’t know if she believes it yet. “And then,” she says, so quietly it almost disappears, “he started to hurt me.”
My vision goes red at the edges. I don’t say his name. I don’t say anything that might pull her back into it. I just hold her tighter, press my lips to her hair, breathe with her until the tremor running through her eases a little.
She goes quiet again. For a long stretch, neither of us speaks. The room settles around us, soft and dim, the cats shifting like they’re standing guard. I feel her breathing slow, but her body stays tense, like she’s braced for something that hasn’t happened yet.
Then her hand moves. She rubs at her arm absently, thumb dragging back and forth over the ink like she’s trying to soothe an old ache. It’s casual. Unthinking. Something she’s probably done a thousand times.
My eyes follow the motion. The tattoo is beautiful. Dark lines, intentional, bold. I’ve noticed it before. Admired it. Thought it fit her. But this time, I see it differently.
Her fingers pause, pressing a little harder, and that’s when I feel it beneath the ink. Raised skin. Not just texture from the tattoo. Something uneven. Something older. Something that doesn’t belong. My chest tightens as the pieces slide together with a sick, quiet click. He didn’t just hurt her. He scarred her. Bad enough that her skin remembers. Bad enough that she chose to cover it. To turn pain into art. To make it hers instead of his. I don’t say anything. Not yet. I don’t want to yank her out of this moment or make her feel like she needs to explain something she’s already lived through.
I just slide my hand down slowly and lay it over hers, following the path of her fingers, grounding her touch with mine. I don’t press. I don’t trace the scars. I just hold her there, skin to skin, letting her know I see it. All of it.
Her breath catches. “I know,” she whispers, like she can feel the realization land in me. “It was easier to cover them than explain.”
My jaw locks. I force myself to breathe through the rage clawing up my spine.
“He doesn’t get to own that anymore,” I say quietly. “Not your skin. Not your story.”
She nods once, eyes closing, like the words settle somewhere deep.
I bend my head and press a gentle kiss to her hair, then another to her temple. Slow. Careful. Reverent. Ink or scars, soft or strong, broken or healing. She’s here. She’s alive.
TWELVE
SAVANNAH
I wake up warm.Lucky is behind me, spooned tight like he anchored himself there sometime in the night and never let go. One of his arms is banded across my waist, and the other is tucked under my pillow, hand curled near my shoulder. His legs are threaded through mine, knee braced behind me like a barricade.
Then the memory of everything that happened last night comes back to me. The screaming. The nightmare. Everything I said. Everything I showed him. Oh god. My stomach flips with embarrassment. Heat crawls up my neck and I try to ease away without waking him, suddenly hyperaware of how intimate this looks and feels.
Oh my god, and my front door. I suck in a breath and start to push up from his embrace, but his arm tightens around me instantly, dragging me back against his chest. He presses a kiss to the side of my neck, slow and possessive, voice thick with sleep. “Where are you going, Firecracker?”
I freeze. Then glance around the room. Menace and Psycho are still on the bed. Psycho is perched by my pillow, and Menace issitting near Lucky’s forearm, both of them glaring at him like he’s on thin ice. “Is the front door still open after you broke in last night?”
He laughs, low and unapologetically, his chest moving against my back. “No. When you fell asleep, I made sure it was locked up.” A pause. “Well, I shoved something heavy in front of it to keep it closed. I’ll get it fixed today. Sorry about that. I heard you scream and I had to get to you.” He holds me tighter, like he’s reliving the memory.
“Thank you,” I whisper.
He shifts just enough to tuck his chin against my shoulder. “No. You don’t thank me for that. You were terrified. I couldn’t bear to see you like that.”
My throat tightens. “I’m sorry.”
He pulls back slightly so I can hear him clearly. “Stop. Don’t you ever apologize for that.”
I nod, even though he can’t see it.
“I mean,” I add quietly, “I’m sorry I left last night. And didn’t answer your calls or texts. It was just too much. I had to get out of there.”
I feel him tense. “How did you get home?” he asks carefully.
