"I didn't want to—" I stopped. What? Worry him? Involve him? Admit that I'd been scared for three weeks and too proud to say it?
"You didn't want to what?"
I didn't have an answer. Or I did, but I wasn't ready to say it out loud.
Brian crossed the room and sat on the overturned couch beside me. Close, but not touching. Giving me space even when he wanted the opposite.
"Okay," he said quietly. "Okay. We'll figure this out."
"Brian, this isn't your?—"
"Don't." His voice was firm but gentle. "Don't tell me this isn't my problem. Someone broke into your apartment and threatened you. That makes it my problem."
I didn't know what to say to that. Brian wasn't offering help like a transaction. He was offering it like it was obvious. Like, of course, he'd be here. Like, where else would he be?
I didn't know what to do with that kind of certainty.
Watson jumped up onto the couch between us, his yellow eyes blinking slowly, his purr steadying into something more confident.
I stared at the wreckage of my apartment. The slashed cushions, the scattered pages, the angry red letters screaming from my wall. I felt the weight of the past three weeks settle into my bones.
Someone had been in here. Someone had touched my things, torn apart my belongings, and left a threat where I slept. They knew where I lived. They knew how to get in. And they wanted me to know that they could do it again whenever they wanted.
But sitting here with Brian beside me, Watson purring between us, the fear felt smaller somehow. Manageable.
I wasn't alone. And that mattered more than I wanted to admit.
Brian rubbed the back of his neck, the way he did when he was working up to something.
"So," he said. "We should probably clean some of this up. At least get the furniture back where it belongs."
"Brian, you don't have to?—"
"I know I don't have to." He stood, surveying the damage with the practiced eye of someone who assessed disaster scenes for a living. "But I'm not letting you deal with this by yourself. We'll get the worst of it sorted. You can stay at my place tonight."
"Brian—"
"The bed's yours. I'll take the couch."
"I can get a hotel."
"You're not getting a hotel."
"I have money. I can?—"
"Ava." He stopped, turned to face me. "You're not spending tonight alone in some random hotel room, jumping at every sound in the hallway."
I looked back at the spray-painted letters on my wall.Mind your business.At the stuffing spilling from my couch cushions like entrails. At the torn pages scattered across the floor.
A hotel would be fine. Practical. Independent.
A hotel would also mean sitting alone with my thoughts, replaying the violation over and over, flinching at every footstep in the corridor.
"Okay," I said finally.
"Okay?"
"Don't make me say it again, Torres."
