She looks like she’s still trying to understand what just happened.
I lower the gun and cross the distance between us in three seconds.
The moment my hands close on her shoulders, something in my chest unclenches.
“You hurt?”
She shakes her head once, fthen swallows. “I… I don’t think so.”
I scan her anyway. Face. Arms. Throat. Knees. Looking for bruises, blood, anything.
When I find none, relief hits so hard it almost makes me dizzy.
Her lower lip trembles. “They said my name.”
The fury comes back instantly.
They weren’t guessing. They were sent for her.
I cup the back of her neck and pull her against me before I can stop myself. She comes without resistance, all soft heat and shock, her hands clutching at my jacket as if I’m the only solid thing left in the world.
“You’re safe,” I say into her hair, my voice rougher than I mean it to be. “I’ve got you.”
She makes a small, broken sound against my chest.
And that’s it.
That’s the moment something irreversible settles in my bones.
This is no longer an inconvenience. No longer a distraction. No longer a stupid, dangerous obsession I can outthink.
Someone came for her.
Which means from this second on, anyone who wants to get to her has to go through me.
And I will bury them for trying.
She pulls back just enough to look up at me.
Her eyes are huge. Glassy. Still stunned. And then she says, in a voice so small it cuts deeper than any bullet, “Who are you?”
The question lands like a blow.
Not because I don’t have an answer. Because honestly, I have too many.
I look at her, at the fear still shaking through her, at the way she’s trying to put together the man who kissed her in an elevator, the man who ate her out in a restaurant bathroom, and the man who just put a gun under someone’s chin like it was second nature.
My hand is still at the back of her neck. I force myself to loosen it, to make the touch gentler.
“Zatanna,” I say quietly, “not here.”
Her throat works as she swallows. She nods, but I can see it in her face. She’s shaken badly enough that if I say one wrong thing, she’ll bolt.
Sergei’s car turns onto the road in the distance, headlights cutting over the scene, but I keep my attention on her.
“Are you sure you’re not hurt?” I ask again.
“No.” Her voice trembles. “I just… I want to go home.” The words come out flat, exhausted, like she’s reached the end of what she can process tonight.
