"Ripley." Leviathan's voice, low and rough. "You awake?"
The relief is so intense I almost sob.
I scramble out of bed, cross the room on unsteady legs, and open the door.
He stands in the hallway, still wearing the same clothes from earlier.
Jeans. Black t-shirt. Leather cut with the President patch. But something's different. Something's?—
His knuckles.
I stare at his hands, at the blood crusted across his knuckles, the split skin, the bruises already forming.
He's been in a fight. A bad one.
My eyes travel up to his face.
His expression is carved from stone, cold and hard, but there's something in his eyes.
Something that looks almost like satisfaction.
"Can I come in?" he asks.
I step back, letting him enter.
He moves past me into the room, and I catch his scent—leather, smoke, something metallic that I realize with a start is blood.
Not his blood.
The door closes behind him.
We stand there in the dim room, the only light coming from the parking lot outside, and Iknow.
I know without him saying a word.
"He's dead," I whisper. It's not a question.
Leviathan meets my eyes. "Yes."
I wait for the horror to come. The guilt. The grief.
Something—anything—to tell me I'm still human, that I haven't been so broken by Cain that I can't feel anymore.
Instead, I feel relief.
It crashes over me like a wave, so powerful my knees buckle.
I grab the dresser for support, gasping, and suddenly I'm crying again—not the quiet tears from earlier, but deep, wrenching sobs that tear their way out of my chest.
The monster under the bed is gone.
I keep waiting for the guilt to follow.
For the voice in my head that sounds like Cain to tell me I'm terrible, that I wanted this, that I'm responsible for a man's death.
But the voice is silent. For the first time in three years, the voice is silent.
"Ripley."
