She’s asleep within minutes.
And I just lie there. Holding her and relishing the feeling of having her in my arms. Watching the door. Listening to the hallway. Counting the seconds until I have to tear us out of this fragile bubble and put her back into a world that wants to break her.
Tomorrow, we’re going to leave here.
But first, she needs to know the truth.
And I make a promise to myself and to her that I’m going to give her all the answers I’ve been avoiding. She deserves that from me. Sheneedsthat from me.
After I tell her the truth, she might want nothing to do with me, but for now, she’s warm and breathing and in my arms.
And that’s enough to keep me still.
Because even though I already knew my reality, now I’m certain of it. I’d rather die than live in a world where she isn’t mine.
Kylie
I wake slowly, like I’m swimming to the surface of a warm pool of water.
The first thing I register isn’t the unfamiliar room, but the solid, steady weight around me. Rook’s strong arm is locked around my waist, firm enough that there’s no doubt it’s intentional, but gentle in the way it holds me there.
And all I feel is safe.
I don’t move right away. I take stock instead. The stillness of his chest against my cheek. The heat of his body against my skin. The way his hand is splayed across my stomach, thumb resting just below my ribs like he put it there without thinking and never reconsidered.
I try to remember how I got here, in this room inside an unnamed hotel located at an unknown destination. My mind floods with memories of the three men in my driveway and the panic I felt when they tried to force me to go with them.
I swallow.
I still don’t know what happened to them.
I still don’t know why Rook and his brothers took me.
And I still don’t know why my world felt like it tilted on its axis and exploded into full Technicolor flames when he kissed me in the back seat of the Suburban. Or why it felt even stronger when I kissed him in this hotel room yesterday.
I don’t know anything except that I have never felt safer than I do right now, wrapped up in him like nothing could reach me without going through him first.
He shifts slightly, and I instantly know he’s not sleeping.
I tilt my head back just enough to look at him, and his eyes are already on me—dark, alert, searching my face like he’s braced for me to bolt.
For a second, neither of us speaks.
Something tight and electric hums between us, and a current runs under my skin. I feel tethered to him in a way I don’t have language for, but it feels like if I moved away from him right now, if I got too far from him, something essential would snap.
I don’t want to move.
I don’t want to be anywhere else.
I shift carefully, turning in his arms until I’m facing him. His hand slides from my stomach to my back. He doesn’t pull me closer, but he doesn’t let go either.
I search his face for answers. For anything that makes sense of the way my chest aches when I look at him. The way mybody seems to soften and brace at the same time, like it knows something I don’t.
“Rook,” I whisper.
“Yeah?”
I hesitate.
