“Alright,” I say immediately. “I’ll take you.”
That makes her tense. “No.”
I go still.
She wraps her arms around herself, glancing once toward the men on the ground and then away again, like she can’t bear to look. “I want to go on my own.”
Every instinct I have hates that answer.
Under different circumstances, I wouldn’t even pretend to consider it. I’d put her in my car, post men outside her building, and ignore whatever argument she made.
But she’s looking at me like she barely knows which part of me is real.
If I push now, I lose her.
So I keep my voice even. “I’m not letting you walk.”
Her eyes flash, more fear than defiance. “I didn’t say walk.”
I exhale slowly. “I’ll have a car take you.”
She hesitates. I can see the calculation in her face. The part of her that wants to refuse everything connected to me tonight. The part that knows she’s too shaken to stand at a bus stop alone.
Finally, she nods once. “Okay. A car.”
“Good.”
Sergei gets out and takes one look at my face before wisely saying nothing. Anton is already moving toward the men, handling the bodies, the blood, the mess. The kind of cleanup I’ve lived with so long it should feel normal.
Tonight, it doesn’t.
Tonight, all I can see is Zatanna being dragged toward that sedan because she left the bathroom alone after I told her to wait.
Because I let her out of my sight. Because I brought her here.
The guilt sits ugly and heavy in my chest.
I pull my phone out and call my driver. “Bring the car to the north service road. Now.”
Zatanna is shivering. I shrug off my coat and move to drape it over her shoulders.
She flinches at first. Just slightly. But I feel it.
The tiny recoil slices through me more cleanly than any knife.
Still, after a second, she lets me settle the coat around her. It nearly swallows her whole. She grips the lapels with both hands, eyes dropping, like she doesn’t want me to see the tears still clinging to her lashes.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
Her head comes up.
I almost never say those words. Not like this. Not and mean them so completely.
“This happened because of me.”
She blinks, startled by the rawness in my voice. “You don’t know that.”
“I do.”
