I stand. Step back out of frame so she can see all of him—the swelling fingers, the wire tourniquet, the blood-smeared chest rising and falling in shallow, defeated rhythm.
The red light on the camera blinks steadily. She’s still watching. Still hungry.
And I still have hours of night left.
7
SOPHIA
Idon’t wake all at once. It’s slower than that. Like something is subtly pulling my attention toward it. Like the space between my shoulder blades has grown aware.
It’s not a sound, or a touch. It’s more like a shift in the air—the kind you notice only when someone is standing too close, when the room feels occupied.
It’s him. I know it is. But instead of bolting upright, I keep my eyes closed and let my breathing stay slow. Sometimes the best defense is pretending you don’t see the threat.
I lie still, concentrating on what I can hear. But he’s so quiet it feels unnatural, like stealth is stitched into his bones. I don’t hear him move. I don’t hear him breathe. And still, I know exactly where he is. There’s a density to him. A gravity. The air feels heavier when he’s in it, like the room has adjusted around his presence and forgotten to leave space for mine.
Fabric rustles, so soft I almost miss it, and suddenly the air thickens. He’s moved closer. My eyelids feel weighted now, refusing to open—not because I can’t, but because whateverwaits on the other side might shatter the fragile control I’m clinging to.
A blanket slides over me, and for a split second, my body reacts before my mind does.
The warmth seeps into my chilled skin, and something inside me loosens—just a little. It unsettles me because I expected my skin to crawl. Instead, it feels careful. Measured. Like he’s aware of a line and has decided not to cross it…yet.
My muscles, traitorous things, ease a fraction despite myself, appreciating the warmth. I hate that my body doesn’t recoil. It makes him harder to categorize. Harder to reduce to monster. And that, more than anything, is dangerous.
He drapes it slowly, the fabric brushing my arm, then my collarbone, then stills. His hand lingers a fraction of a second longer than necessary, and suddenly my lungs forget their rhythm, betraying me with each shallow rise and fall.
“This is not what I wanted,” he murmurs, and the words hit like a crack in glass. My mind snags on it, trips over it, tries to reroute it into something that makes sense. A threat. A lie. A tactic. Something rehearsed. Something meant to soften me.
My eyes stay shut, but my body’s awake now in a different way—alert, listening, hungry for clarity. But then he moves, and the air shifts as he steps back, the weight of him easing off the room inch by inch, like pressure lifting from a bruise. I hear the faintest scuff of his boot against the floor. A measured step. Then another.
He’s leaving.
That’s it? That’s all I get?
The confusion spikes hotter than fear, and before I can stop myself, before I can think better of it, I jerk upright, the blanket sliding from my shoulders to my lap.
“Then why am I here?” The words come out softly, but loud enough to cut the quiet in half.
He stops. Just stills mid-step, his back toward me, a duffel bag slung low in one hand like he was already halfway out the door. For a second, neither of us moves, and I’m convinced he’s about to leave without answering. So, I stand, the blanket pooling around my ankles, not taking my eyes off him.
“If this is not what you want, then why am I here?”
He adjusts his grip on the duffel, then turns to face me. The porch light throws amber through the narrow window, cutting across his frame—half his face in shadow, half caught in the glow.
The hood of the sweatshirt beneath his jacket is pulled up and his buff remains in place, leaving only his eyes visible. I’ve seen those eyes before. But not like this. There’s something different in them now. The edge I’ve come to associate with him—the blade beneath the surface—isn’t aimed at me in this moment. It’s turned inward. Tight. Controlled.
“You’ll be warmer if you sleep in the bedroom,” he says, his tone calm.
“I’m avoiding that room for as long as I have the choice.” I cross my arms. “Why am I here?”
He studies me like he’s memorizing something. Like he’s bracing, his hand tightening on the duffel, knuckles shifting. “You’re here because I ran out of better fucking options.”
“Options for what?”
A shadow crosses his gaze, brief but unmistakable. “It’s complicated.”
“That’s not an answer.”
