For a second, I couldn’t speak.
Not because I didn’t have words.
Because I did.
Too many.
Amanda’s face flashed in my head. The way she stood up in church. The way she trained today. The way she’d said she didn’t want to be protected from the world. She wanted to stand in it.
Partnership.
Not protection.
Cap was right.
I nodded once. “I won’t.”
When I went back to my room, I didn’t turn on the light. Moonlight spilled across the floor in a pale stripe. Amanda was still asleep, hair fanned across my pillow, breathing steady.
I stood there for a moment and let myself feel it.
The relief.
The fear.
The anger that never fully left.
Then I moved quietly, sitting on the edge of the bed and brushing the back of my knuckles along her cheek.
Her lashes fluttered, and she half-woke, eyes still heavy.
“Hey,” she murmured.
“Hey,” I whispered back.
She reached for my wrist like she needed contact to stay grounded, then settled again, her fingers still wrapped around me.
I stared into the dark.
The ring was still out there.
Ghost was still in that room with his screens.
Scout was alive but shattered.
And somewhere in the city, a woman named Jasmine was walking out of a building she didn’t realize was dangerous.
The ring didn’t retreat.
It adapted.
So would we.
I leaned down and kissed Amanda’s forehead, careful and quiet.
Then I let myself lie beside her, keeping my body still, my breathing even, my mind already working.
Not because I wanted to fix her.
