Something inside me softens painfully. “Rhys,” I whisper.
But he doesn’t stop, and I don’t pull back. Everything sits between us in the only space we know how to cross.
He presses his cheek to my palm, then kisses it. Still not looking at me. Not speaking. Saying everything he refuses to put into words.
And that’s why I’ll stay… even when he tells me to go.
His hand drops to his side, but mine still palms his cheek, tilting his head, forcing him to look at me.
“Rhys.” It comes out like a sob or a prayer. Maybe a vow.
He turns away, and the room goes cold again. The thunder claps louder, lightning flashes brighter. I hug myself with my arms.
After the smoke cleared, and the bodies were counted, and Phoenix was gone. Rhys knew Phoenix died for something he believed in. I don’t know if that makes this better or worse.
“So, even to the end, he thought he was right?” The question leaves me before I can stop it.
Rhys goes very still. For a second, I think he won’t answer. Then, his voice comes out low and gravelly, “I think he believed he was.”
I stare down at my hands, gripping my arms. The same hands that touched Rhys’s scars, wrapped his arm, pressed against the coordinates burned permanently into his skin. A memorial disguised as punishment. Or maybe punishment disguised as a memorial.
I don’t know anymore. Nothing fits cleanly enough to hold on to.
Rhys finally moves away from the window. The shift is immediate. I feel the distance, the withdrawal. His armor sliding back into place piece by piece.
“I’ll check the slope before daylight,” he says.
I blink, disoriented by the sudden practicality. “What?”
“The ground’ll loosen more overnight.”
“You don’t have to keep pretending that Jeep matters right now.”
His teeth grind. “That’s not pretending.”
Maybe not. Maybe fixing things is the only language he has left.
He grabs his jacket from the hook near the door, movements controlled again, careful and contained. Like the man who broke open ten minutes ago never existed. The loss of him is immediate and irrational.
“You don’t have to go.”
His hand pauses on the jacket. “Can’t stay. Not right now.”
Fire simmers behind his gaze, his face hard and unreadable. But everything I need to know, I felt in his careful touch. In the way his lips adored me.
I shake my head, trying to clear my mind. I never expected this—the loneliness, the need, the possibility of happiness close enough to grasp. Maybe. If one of us would relent or be braver.
I ask the question that’s been sitting inside my chest since the moment he said Phoenix fought him. “Do you regret trying to save him?”
Slowly, he turns. The firelight catches the exhaustion carved deep into his face. “No.”
The honesty in it nearly tears me apart. I swallow hard. “Even knowing what you know now?”
His eyes darken. “I was responsible for my team.” The answer comes instantly. Military. Absolute. But something beneath it cracks slightly when he continues. “And he was one of them.”
There it is again. That impossible grief. Not just guilt. Forgiveness despite everything—complicated, furious,unfinished. The kind that survives people, whether you want it to or not.
Rhys looks away first. “I need air.” Then he steps outside before I can answer.
