After, he carried me to the bed. Button by button, my shirt gave way, clothes discarded on the floor. This time, the pace was slower. Gentler. His fingers traced the curve of my hip, the line of my collarbone, asking no questions, demanding nothing but touch.
I closed my eyes, willing the sensation to drown out the day.
Instead, my mind betrayed me.
For a split second, the warmth of Jamie’s skin was replaced by a phantom memory—a prickle of cold static. The smell of cheap cologne was overwritten by the copper scent of rain.
I gasped, and Jamie took it for pleasure, his grip tightening. He misread the signal entirely. My mind had snapped back to the police station, to that terrifying, dangerous stillness that had set my blood on fire.
This was safe. This was human. But my body betrayed me, looking past the comfort to ache for the storm I’d felt earlier. Deep down, the safety rang hollow. I starved for the danger.
I chased the release anyway, desperate to bury the thought. We found the pace again in the damp warmth, but the friction was just biology now. When the wave finally took me, I drifted off with his limbs tangled in mine, waiting for a silence that refused to come.
The sound of my phone jolted me awake. I fumbled for the device on the bedside table, my arm the only thing moving while the rest of me remained heavy under the duvet. Mind still thick with sleep. Six o’clock. Too early for anything except trouble.
“Yeah?” My voice was rough, muffled by the pillow.
“Selene.” Orin’s voice, usually calm, held a sharp edge. “You need to get to the office. We have aproblem.”
My yesterday’sclothes lay in a crumpled heap. I snatched them up, dressing quickly while Jamie watched from the bed, propped on an elbow. No promises. No expectations. Just a mutual need for distraction that had run its course.
“Right,” I mumbled, boots in hand. “Duty calls.”
He nodded, gathering the duvet higher. “Stay safe, Selene.”
I slipped out, closing the door quietly behind me. The corridor smelled of paint and sizzling sausages—someone else’s morning ritual. It smelled like safety. Like a life where the biggest worry was running out of milk.
By the time I hit the pavement, the cool air had stripped it all away. The warmth of the flat evaporated instantly, leaving me colder than before. The human world refused to stick to me, sliding off like oil on water.
I should have felt strange, sneaking out while the sheets were still warm, but I didn’t. I never did. I’d tried. A handful of almost-relationships scattered across the last few years, all hitting the “Three Month Ceiling.” Long enough for dinners and shared jokes, short enough that no one bothered pretending there was a future.
They were good men. Kind, solid choices. Yet, a hollow silence always settled in my chest. I missed the current—that thrilling, high-voltage buzz everyone else seemed to find so easily. The kind that rattled your teeth. The kind I only ever felt when disaster was walking through the door.
Jamie was no different. I needed a painkiller, and he was uncomplicated. But the numbness hadn’t even lasted the walk to the stairwell. There was no ache as I walked away. Just the familiar emptiness I slipped back into like a second skin.
I waved down a taxi and slid into the back seat, the city yawning awake as we pulled off.
Orin’s call still echoed in my head—brisk, clipped, urgent.We have aproblem.
Work first. Everything else can sit where it always did: behind me, fading fast.
The taxi ride across the city blurred past the windows. Every familiar street, every glittering strip of morning sun on glass, felt strangely distant—like I was passing through a version of Ravenholt that didn’t quite belong to me.
My own car was still languishing at the garage, its engine having died a few weeks back in a spectacularly inconvenient fashion. I really needed the damned thing back; maybe I should call the garage later, bully them into an update. I missed the sanctuary of it—the faint scent of old pine air freshener, the worn patch on the steering wheel under my thumb. Ritual. Habit. My shield. Without that steel shell, I was exposed. The city clawed at the armour I fought to keep intact.
Inside the MCIU bullpen, the air was dense. Not with magic, but with the foreboding quiet that precedes a storm. My footsteps echoed, too loud, too early.
The double doors swung open behind me, and Dane stepped through, bringing a gust of cold rain with him. He didn’t say a word, just grunted a greeting and made a direct line for the coffee machine like a man running on fumes.
He slotted a pod into the machine and glanced over his shoulder, taking in my rumpled clothes. Amusement flickered in his eyes. He offered a wry smile—an acknowledgement that some nights are for forgetting.
I gave him a tight grin in return, then marched towards Orin’s tech bay. The door stood open, a beacon.
Mira was just shrugging off her wet coat, hanging it on the back of her chair. She looked up as I approached, her expression brightening into a tease.
“Morning, sunshine,” she said, a sympathetic smirk tugging at the corner of her mouth. “You look like you need a triple shot.”
“Make it a quadruple,” I shot back, rubbing a hand over my face. I needed the caffeine to even process the daylight.
