Two days until I have to stand against the wall with my hands clasped behind my back and watch.
I could end this right now.
Walk in there. Wrap my hands around his throat. Squeeze until his eyes bulge and his face goes purple and he finally understands what it feels like to have no control. I could make him beg. Make him crawl. Make him apologize to her with his last rattling breath.
But there's one of me and thirty of them in this house.
So I stay where I am. Add another item to the list.
It's getting long.
I can't fucking wait to start crossing them off.
It'stwo in the morning, and I can't stay away.
Sleep isn't happening. Not after watching her face at dinner. The way she disappeared behind her own eyes.
That's all I see when I close mine now.
She doesn't have to go through with the dinner party. We can find another way.
Standing outside her door at this hour is ridiculously stupid, but that seems to be my thing these days. Because I'm selfish and desperate and so goddamn tired of pretending I don't want the things I swore I'd bury.
I press my ear to the wood. I hear nothing but dead air.
The loft is dark when I slip inside. It takes a minute for my vision to adjust, and in that moment, a voice in my head tells me this is insane.
I stopped listening to that voice hours ago.
Before all of this, I never would have done something so careless. But whatever discipline I had left crumbled somewhere around evening rounds. By the time patrol ended, I was already pulling on dark clothes and checking the hallway for witnesses.
The dumbest impulses always feel the most necessary.
The scarf covers the lower half of my face, but my eyes are exposed. I left the contacts out tonight.
If she wakes up, I want her to see exactly who's watching her.
Calder is asleep on his side of the bed, sprawled out like a man who's never worried about someone coming for him in the dark.
Funny how vulnerable he is right now.
He will have to worry eventually.
Just not tonight.
I take a step closer, eyes adjusting fully now.
Keira is restless, shifting beneath the sheets. She's facing away from Calder, but every few seconds she moves, her body twitching. Her breathing is uneven—enough to make me pause mid-step.
A thin sheen of sweat glistens on her skin despite the cool air pumping through the vents. Even in sleep, tension carves itself into her features. The furrow between her brows. The way her lips part and close like she's trying to say something she can't quite get out.
At first, I think she's having a nightmare.
Then I hear her moan.
Her thighs press together, release, then press together again.
Oh fuck.
