It isn’t something you can see right away. It’s deeper than that, buried under skin and bone, like something inside me came loose the second the door gave way, and now my body has no idea how to put itself back together again.
The world comes back all at once, too loud and too sharp, edges cutting where they shouldn’t. Metal echoes. Movement blurs. Voices overlap with the lingering impact of violence that hasn’t fully settled into silence yet.
And then…
“Hey.”
Zane.
I don’t remember him crossing the space. One second I’m still on the floor, the next I’m being pulled upright, my balance gone before I can find it again, my knees trying and failing to remember their job.
I don’t fall—he doesn’t give me the chance.
His hands are already there, solid and immediate, like he’s been waiting for the exact moment I would need him. My fingers don’t quite cooperate, but they still find his shirt, clutching at it anyway, grounding myself in his warmth.
Zane doesn’t tell me to calm down. He just pulls me closer, one hand firm at my back, the other bracing me as I tilt toward him, and then his forehead presses gently to mine.
“You’re here,” he says quietly. “You’re here.”
His voice cuts through everything else, low and certain in a way that makes the rest of the noise feel distant.
I focus on that.
On him.
On the rhythm of his breathing, and without thinking, I try to match it.
In. Out. In…it stutters,out…
Still uneven, but closer than it was.
“I’m here,” I echo, because saying it feels like proof. Like if I say it enough times, my body might start to believe me.
My grip tightens in his shirt. “I’m here.”
“I know,” he murmurs.
His hand shifts slightly at my back, like he’s keeping the world level while mine figures out how to spin again.
Something moves in my peripheral vision.
Color. Shape. Familiar.
Finn.
He’s leaning against the wall, one hand pressed to his side, and there’s blood there. Too much of it, bright and spreading through his fingers like he’s pretending it isn’t happening.
And he’s smiling.
Of course he is.
The sight hits somewhere strange, soft and painful all at once.
“Hi,” he says, as if we ran into each other over coffee instead of… this.
My throat tightens. “You’re always bleeding.”
He glances down, then back up, like he’s mildly surprised. “Yeah. I’ve been told that.”
