Starting with his face, I wipe the lingering soot from his forehead, tracing the hairline, and clear the grit from the bridge of his nose. I’m gentle, terrified of hurting him, but he doesn’t flinch. He doesn’t take his eyes from mine, even as my hands move down his jawline, cleaning the cut on his cheek, then lower to his neck, and finally to his chest.
I carefully wipe around the fresh white gauze on his shoulder, clearing the dried blood and grime from his healthy skin. Beneath the dirt, the other marks on his torso come into focus.
The series of scars I noticed earlier.
I pause over a jagged, circular pucker of white tissue on his right ribcage.
“This wasn’t a bullet,” I say, tracing the edge of the old scar with the cloth.
He looks down, barely glancing at it.
“Rebar,” he says. “Construction site in Moscow. A long time ago.”
I move the cloth to a long, thin line running diagonally across his abdomen.
“And this one?”
“Knife. Brussels.”
I stop cleaning. My hand hovers over the fresh white gauze taped to his left deltoid.
The memory has been burning in my mind since the tunnel. It clawed at me in the elevator. It’s screaming at me now. I drop the washcloth onto the mattress and look him in the eye.
“Earlier,” I say. “In the tunnel. You stepped in front of me.”
He goes still.
“He was aiming center mass,” he says dismissively, avoiding eye contact. “The vest did its job. Don’t overthink it.”
“Liar,” I say. “It hit your shoulder. Two inches to the right, and it would’ve hit your neck. You threw your body in front of a rifle. You could’ve died.”
He says nothing, his face a mask of stone.
“You told me I was leverage,” I push, stepping closer until my knees brush against his. “You told me I was an asset. Assets are expendable, Cassian. Tactically, it was a terrible move. You should’ve let him shoot me.”
A muscle twitches in his jaw.
“Is that what you think?” he asks softly.
“It’s what you told me.”
“The rules changed,” he grates out.
“When?”
“The moment you stopped running from me.”
His right hand shoots out, wrapping around my waist. The heat of his palm burns through my sweater as he pulls me forward.
I stumble, falling to my knees between his legs.
He leans down, his face inches from mine. I smell the metallic tang of his blood and the sharp bite of sweat.
“I stole you,” he says, his voice rough, scraping against my skin. “I took you from the world. That makes you mine. And nobody touches what’s mine.”
His hand slides up my back, tangling in my hair. He tilts my head back, exposing my throat to him.
His words… They’re possessive. They’re dark. They’re everything I should hate.
