Just until the world comes crashing back in.
Chapter Ten: Elliot
He’sgoingtodeliverthe evidence he has.
That's what Jace tells me before he leaves, adjusting his jacket, checking the paperwork one last time. The Whitmore intel is solid. The Cyprus accounts, the shell companies, the network of handlers and facilitators. Everything Abernathy needs to justify keeping me alive.
"Stay inside," he says at the door. "Don't answer if anyone knocks."
"I know the rules."
He pauses. Looks at me. Something flickers in those grey eyes, something I'm learning to recognize as the closest he gets to emotion.
"I'll be back by 1300," he says. "Three hours."
"I'll be here."
He nods once, then he's gone. Three deadbolts engage behind him,and I'm alone.
I stand in the silence of the apartment and press my hand to the bite mark on my neck. It throbs under my fingers, a pulse of pain that feels almost like comfort.
He'll be back. Three hours. I just have to wait.
I don't know yet that I won't make it that long.
My body aches in places I forgot I had. The bite mark on my neck throbs when I turn my head. The scratches down my sides sting when I stretch. Between my legs, there's a soreness that feels like proof of something I'm still trying to understand.
I chose this. I asked for it. And he gave it to me.
The memory surfaces in fragments: his hands in my hair, his voice in my ear, the way he saidgood boylike it was the most natural thing in the world. The way I fell apart and he caught me. The way he held me after, talked me back, made me feel like something worth being careful with.
I press my face into his pillow and breathe.
It smells like him. Like soap and skin and something darker underneath, something that might be violence or might just be the absence of softness.
I don't know what I'm feeling. Relief, maybe. Terror, definitely. And underneath both, a warmth that spreads through my chest like infection.
I chose you. Whatever you are.
I meant it. I still mean it.
I just don't know what it means yet.
I make coffee. The machine hisses and gurgles, filling the apartment with the fresh smell of grinds. I pour a cup, wrap my hands around it, let the heat seep into my palms.
The apartment is quiet. Too quiet. I've gotten used to Jace's presence, the subtle sounds of him moving through the space, the weight of his attention even when he's not looking at me.
Without him, the silence feels heavy. Expectant.
Like it's waiting for something.
After my coffee, I eat an apple and then decide that I need to shower.
The water stings the scratches on my sides, turns the bite mark on my neck into a pulse of sensation. I stand under the spray and watch the bruises darken, purple blooming across my hips where his fingers dug in.
I should be horrified. Part of me is horrified.
But a bigger part of me traces each mark with something that feels almost like pride.
