The safehouse is silent.
It is a deep, profound silence. No traffic. No sirens. No hum of electricity. Just the wind rattling the boards on the windows and the steady, rhythmic rasp of Killian breathing.
I watch his chest rise and fall.
I can't stop looking at the scars. The knife wound moves with his breath, stretching and contracting. The gunshot scar disappears into shadow and reappears.
I reach out.
I trace the line of the knife wound on his chest with my fingertip. The skin is smooth, raised, shiny.
I move my hand to the cigarette burns on his shoulder. I hover over them, not touching. The heat of his skin radiates against my palm. I can almost feel the phantom pain of the burns, the smell of searing flesh.
Who did this to you?
My da.
The answer is a whisper in my mind.
I pull my hand back.
I am falling.
The realization is quiet. It doesn't arrive with a fanfare or a panic attack. It seeps in like the cold damp of the river, settling in my bones, becoming part of the structure.
I am falling for the man who pinned me against a glass wall. The man who threatened me with a knife in my own kitchen. The man who saved my life tonight.
It isn't logical. It isn't strategic. It is a catastrophic vulnerability. A variable I cannot control.
And I don't care.
Killian shifts. He makes a low sound in his throat—a groan of pain. His eyelids flutter.
"Hey," I say softly. "You're safe."
His eyes open.
The green is hazy, unfocused. He blinks, trying to clear the fog. He looks at the ceiling, confused by the water stains on the plaster. Then he looks at me.
Focus returns. I watch the memory reload behind his eyes—the sniper, the car, the blood. The panic spikes.
He tries to sit up.
"Don't." I put a hand on his chest, pressing him back. "You have twelve stitches in your side. You move, you rip them."
He slumps back against the cushions. He licks his dry lips. "Water."
I get up. I find a glass in the kitchen—dusty, chipped. I rinse it out in the sink. The water runs brown for a second, then clear. I fill it.
I go back. I lift his head, supporting his neck with my hand, and hold the glass to his lips.
He drinks greedily, water spilling down his chin.
"Slow down," I say.
He finishes the glass. He drops his head back onto the cushion.
"You stitched me?" he asks. His voice is a wreck, gravel and rust.
