I'm going to try.
For real this time.
Not the guarded, one-foot-out-the-door trying I've been doing since I got here—smiling at dinners while keeping myself guarded, learning their routines while clinging to my past. Real trying. The kind where you unpack the bag and put it where you can't reach it and let yourself believe that maybe, this time, the floor won't drop out.
For Margot, who burned her life down for me once and would do it again without blinking.
For myself. For the version of me that survived and walked out the other side. That person deserves a home. A real one. Not a placement. Not a guest room. A place where people care and wait up for you.
I sit on the edge of my bed. Press my palms against the mattress. Feel how solid it is.
Home.
I can make that work.
Chapter 13
I've been putting off visiting Wren.
Not because I don't want to see her. I do. I want to see how she’s doing and be there for her as much as she needs.
But I’m also scared. The last time I saw her face it was through a narrowing gap in ambulance doors and she was bruised and barely conscious and asking me not to forget. I'm afraid that walking into her hospital room will crack open a part of my I’ve tightly packed away with the rest of the fucked up things that have happened to me.
Once it’s packed away, it’s safe. At least until something triggers it. And Wren feels like a massive, blinking trigger.
But I promised. And I don't break promises.
Bane drives.
I didn't ask him to. I came downstairs with my keys in my hand and he was already in the foyer. Jacket on, his car keys spinning around one finger.
"I'll take you," he said. Not offering. Informing.
"You don't have to—"
"I know."
So Bane drives. And I sit in the passenger seat of his black Audi and watch the city slide past and try not to think about thelast time we were in a car together—the sedan, the loading dock, his head on my shoulder and our fingers laced.
He hasn’t touched me since he dropped my hand like it was on fire.
I haven’t forgotten.
He parks at the hospital. Kills the engine. Reaches into the back seat and pulls out a folder—manila, thin, professional. The kind of thing you'd bring to a meeting.
"What's that?"
"Apartment lease. Furnished one-bedroom in Midtown, month-to-month. An account in her name with enough for six months of expenses." He opens the folder. Shows me the printout. "And a security detail. One person, discreet. In case Kline decides to reclaim lost inventory."
I stare at the folder. At the lease with Wren's name typed neatly at the top. At the bank statement. At the business card for a private security firm I've never heard of.
"Wait. You did all this? When?"
"Yesterday." He closes the folder. Tucks it under his arm. "And the day before."
"Bane, she doesn't—you don't even know her."
He looks at me. The hazel eyes are steady.
