I bite my lip, keeping from giving him another sarcastic answer.
I’m not looking for a fight with him.
“Now sit down and eat,” Koen adds, his tone softening slightly. “You look like shit.”
I hesitate, but eventually, I walk to the table and lower myself into a chair. When Koen starts to put plates piled with food on the table and sets one with eggs and bacon in front of me, the air feels thick, as if I’m carrying it in my lungs, choking on it.
A little while later, Sylus strolls into the kitchen, his dark hair tousled and his usual air of nonchalance settling around him like a second skin. His eyes lock onto me before a genuine smile spreads over his face, and then he’s by my side, sliding into the seat next to me.
“Hey, bro,” Sylus greets, reaching out to place a hand on my shoulder, but then he pauses and pulls his hand back, thinking better of it.
I loosen my grip on the fork I’d subconsciously gripped in my fist.
Thank fuck.
I can’t stand to be touched anymore. Every hand on me during those four years in jail was only meant to hurt, whether it was guards or other inmates.And I deserved it.
I got into juvie when I was almost seventeen. They called ityouth detentionto make it sound softer, but it wasn’t. Still, juvie was bearable. Tough, yeah, but survivable. The real nightmare started when I turned eighteen. That’s when they moved me to an adult prison, which was brutal in a way juvie never could be. There was a code inside those walls, and word traveled fast. It didn’t take long before everyone knew what I was in for.
They all knew I had killed her.
And nobody likes a girlfriend killer.
They didn’t care that she was everything to me, that I didn’t mean to do it, or that it was an accident. They didn’t care about my side of the story at all. Why would they?
After a while, I stopped defending myself because, honestly, what was the point? I carried that guilt, and the beatings, the isolation. I took them as my punishment.
Then, when I turned twenty-one and had six months left on my sentence, Oscar came into the picture. From the moment he walked into my cell, I knew he was different. He wasn’t broken like the rest of us.
Oscar was there because Harrington had framed him, some bullshit corporate scheme. He only had three months to serve but treated me like a person, someone worth something, unlike everyone else in there.
And we made a plan.
He helped me find a glimmer of light in my darkness, and in return, I shared everything I knew and helped him scheme.
When his time was up, I figured that was it. I was convinced no one would be waiting for me when I finally got out. I’d resigned myself to that too. But on the day my sentence was done, and I walked out of those gates, Oscar was there, leaning against his Mustang, waiting for me like it was the most natural thing in the world.
He saved me in more ways than I ever thought possible.
The fear of touch, though? It’s not something that quickly goes away. The guys get it, and for the most part, they respect that boundary.
“Nice to see you down here,” Sylus says easily, pulling me out of my thoughts, his tone so devoid of judgment it throws me off balance for a second. Like he’s genuinely glad I showed up with no strings attached. He doesn’t push or pry or fill the space with questions or commentary. He simply leaves the words hangingin the air between us like a lifeline I’m not quite sure I’m ready to take.
But this is Sylus. He acts like a child most of the time, with that unhinged energy that can light up a room or make you want to throttle him, depending on the day. He’s too much, too loud, and too ridiculous, but then there’s this other side of him, the one that sees straight through the walls you’ve spent years building. He knows when to rein it in and when to push, when to throw out a joke, and when to sit in silence.
Sylus might seem like chaos in human form, but he’s a fucking genius, both with his head and his heart. He is emotionally astute in ways that can be unnerving like he’s cracked the code to understanding people before they even open their mouths.
There’s a flicker of something in his expression.Hope, maybe?Or simply patience, the kind that says he’ll wait as long as it takes for me to grab that line. Because that’s Sylus too. Beneath the jokes, the games, and the constant stream of nonsense, he’s steady in ways that make you want to trust him, even when trusting anyone feels impossible.
I clear my throat, trying to ignore the tightness in my chest. “Don’t get used to it,” I say, aiming for casual and landing somewhere closer to defensive.
He grins, sharp and crooked, like he knows I don’t mean it. “Oh, I never get used to anything. Life’s more fun that way.”
His words are light, but there’s a depth to his gaze that makes my stomach twist. It’s not pity but understanding—the kind that doesn’t need to be spoken out loud to hit like a punch to the gut.
Dammit, Sylus.
He always makes it harder to keep my walls up.
