He turned away from me then, already moving, already aligning his body toward the outer wards as if proximity alone could end the argument.
I followed him.
“You don’t get to walk into this alone,” I said. “Not when I’m the reason it’s happening.
He stopped so abruptly I nearly ran into his back.
He turned, towering, every inch of him pulled tight with restraint. “You are exactly why you don’t come.”
“I’m not a liability,” I said. “I’m not something you hide and pray survives.”
His jaw flexed. “I don’t pray.”
“No,” I shot back. “It’s about control.”
That landed.
His voice dropped, dangerously low. “It’s about keeping youalive.”
Something in the way he said it made my chest tighten.
“And what happens,” I demanded, “when keeping me alive costs you more than you planned for?”
His expression didn’t’ change.
The rain shifted then, fine drizzle sharpening into something heavier. Wind slid down the street in a sudden rush, tugging at cloaks and sending loose water skittering across stone.
Atlas’s gaze snapped outward.
For a long moment, he said nothing.
Then he exhaled slowly, like a man releasing something he’d been holding for too long.
“Stay with me,” he said.
Not an invitation.
A condition.
His jaw flexed. “You do what I say. When I say it.”
“I always do,” I replied. “Until it stops making sense.”
That earned me a look. Dark. Assessing. Not angry but calculating.
“Little storm,” he said quietly, and the name landed heavy between us. “If this turns, you move when I tell you. No hesitation.”
“And if I don’t?” I asked.
His gaze snapped back to mine, sharp now.
The wind surged harder, rain slanting sideways now, the sky pressing low over the narrow street. Thunder rolled again, closer, layered.
Atlas studied my face.
Something shifted in him then. Not surrender.
Acceptance.
