“I won’t let anything touch you again,” I say. My voice comes out rough. Used up.
She swings her legs off the bed. Her bare feet meet the cold stone floor, and something in my chest tightens at the sight of it—how human it is, how fragile. The lamplight catches a flash of the pale scar at her ankle, uneven and old, and the thought comes unbidden, sharp enough to hurt.
She’s mine to protect.
It’s a dangerous thought. One I don’t let myself touch too often.
“Justin.” She says my name like she’s testing it, steadier now. Curious. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
I say nothing, because she’s standing now, because she’s close enough that I can smell her in the quiet aftermath of her survival.
The air shifts.
Not dramatically like it does in stories. This is more subtle. Just two people who’ve been running from different kinds of violence, suddenly standing still. The room holds its breath.
She looks at me once, searching for confirmation that this moment exists. Then she closes the distance between us.
The kiss is sharp, committed, almost bruising. There’snothing delicate or careful about it. It’s a live wire meeting a fuse. Her fingers curl into my collar, grounding, claiming. My jaw tightens under her palm. For a heartbeat, neither of us moves, stunned by the relief of it. By the fact that we’re both still here. Still breathing the same ruined air.
I try to stop. Ishouldstop.
I tell myself I’m poison. That anything I touch becomes part of my ledger. Another mark I’ll carry.
But she kisses me again—harder this time, desperate in a way that feels like survival—and the control I’ve been clinging to all night starts to fracture. My hands find her shoulders, then her waist. It’s not gentle, but it’s reverent. It’s the ache of two people who have forgotten softness and are trying to remember how it feels.
When I pull back, it’s abrupt. Violent in its restraint.
Her breath catches. My hands hover in the space she was, fingers trembling with everything I didn’t do.
I could tell myself I stopped because I don’t care. But that would be a lie.
I stopped because she deserves choices that aren’t a result of shock and fear. Because she deserves a moment that isn’t borrowed from chaos. Because respect—real respect—is the one thing I still know how to give without hesitation.
Her eyes search my face, flushed, bright, too alive for what she’s survived.
“Why—” she starts.
“Because you’re hurt,” I say quietly, the words rough around the edges. “And because you’re confused. You can’t make decisions like this right now.”
She tilts her head, studying me the way people do when they’ve already decided you’re lying—to yourself, if no one else.
“What are you so afraid of?” she asks.
She doesn’t blink.
Christ.
“A lot,” I murmur. “None of it your concern.”
A faint, infuriating smirk curves her mouth, before her gaze sharpens.
“Are you a dangerous man, Justin Collins?”
I don’t hesitate. “I’m not the real danger. I’m the devil you know.”
She laughs—soft, genuine—and the sound slices through me like it knows exactly where to land. I feel it in my ribs, in the place I keep things locked down. I shouldn’t be enjoying this. She was almost taken from this world hours ago, and I’m still replaying every version of what could’ve happened if I’d been seconds later.
“For once…” her voice is quieter now, “I’m glad you were watching me.”
