“No.” I shook my head, anger stirring again because of course he would say it like that, like I was a checklist, like this was a maintenance routine. “No, don’t do that.”
His brows drew together. “Do what?”
“Act like this is normal.” My voice roughened as I gestured around the room, to the blankets, the snacks, the heater, the ice pack, the stupid comfy clothes, the portable toilet I was aggressively not looking at. “Act like you’re taking care of me when you dragged me in here against my will.” I pushed myself up a little straighter against the wall, careful of my ankle. “You chased me down after I walked in on you killing someone, tackled me, tied me up, and threw me in this room that I don’t know if I even want to know why you have. You won’t let me leave, but you’re acting like you’re worried about whether I’m comfortable.”
“I am worried,” he said.
“Why?” The word cracked through the room. I swallowed, my throat sore from crying and yelling and breathing too hard for too long. “Why?” I asked again, because now that I had started, I couldn’t stop. “Why do you care if I’m cold? Why do you care if I’m sore? Why do you care if I eat, or drink, or have a pillow under my ankle? You literally put me here, Tobias. You don’t get to make me a prisoner and then fuss over me like I’m something precious.”
“You are precious,” he said softly.
The room went dead quiet.
I stared at him, a cold, horrified little shiver moving through me despite the blanket over my lap. “Wha—No.”
His gaze did not waver. “Yes.”
“No,” I said again, louder this time. “You don’t get to say that.”
“I know you do not want to hear it.”
“That is not the problem.”
“It is the truth.”
“The truth?!” I laughed once, hard and brittle. “The truth is that you killed someone tonight. The truth is that I saw you. And the truth is that because of that, I’m a prisoner.”
“Yes,” he said, and the directness of it made my stomach twist. “That is also true.”
“Then how can you stand there and talk about care?”
His eyes darkened. “Because the two things are not separate for me.”
“What?”
Ben closed his eyes for a second, like he had been hoping Tobias would not say exactly that.
“I understand that you see contradiction,” Tobias continued, voice too intense for the small room. “I understand that you think my concern should be invalidated by what I have done, but it is not. The fact that I cannot allow you to leave does not change the fact that you are injured. It does not change that you are cold, thirsty, frightened, and exhausted. It does not change that you require care. It does not change that you are precious to me.”
I stared at him, barely breathing.
“You’re insane,” I whispered.
Pain moved through his face, there and gone so quickly I almost missed it. “I am aware that is likely how this appears to you.”
“No, Tobias. It doesn’tappearthat way. It is that way.”
He looked at me for a long moment, and there was something so terribly sad in his eyes that I had to look away first.
“I didn’t want this,” he said quietly.
I gripped the blanket in my hands. “Then… then let me go, Tobias. Care for me by letting me go.”
“I can’t.”
The same answer.
Always the same answer.
