He nods frantically. “I swear. I didn’t see anything else. He must’ve seen me on the cameras. I swear to God.”
I tilt my head. “What was the date?”
His lips tremble. “The 9th of July. 2015.”
I pull the trigger.
I never intended to let him live.
I straighten, draw my phone, capture proof, and send it where it’s demanded.
Jaxon steps beside me, offering a cigarette. I take it. Light it. Drag the smoke deep into my lungs.
“What’s with the date?” he asks quietly.
I exhale slowly; eyes fixed on the body cooling at our feet.
“The day my brother died.”
Chapter Six
Emmy
The ICU is quiet in that peculiar way that never truly means silence.
Machines hum softly, monitors blink in steady rhythms, and beneath it all there’s the constant awareness that life here is fragile, balanced on wires, breaths, and hope. I like talking to the patients who can’t answer me. There’s no judgement in their stillness. No expectations.
Today, I sit beside Mr Blackwood’s bed, bed 9, my voice low as I tell him about the weather, about the café down the street that finally fixed their coffee machine. I smooth his blanket, check his vitals, and try not to let my thoughts wander.
They do anyway.
I’m not yours.
The words echo in my head, defiant and hollow all at once.
Khai’s voice follows them, not spoken aloud, but remembered. The way he’d call me Little Heaven like it belonged somewhere private. The way his gaze had held me, steady and unyielding, as if ownership wasn’t something he needed permission for.
I swallow and force my attention back to the present.
“You’d like him,” I murmur to Mr Blackwood, unsure why I say it. “He’s… intense. Complicated.”
Dangerous, whispers something in the back of my mind.
I exhale slowly, fingers tightening around the bedrail as if grounding myself will push the thought away. Mr Blackwood doesn’t stir. His chest rises and falls in a steady rhythm, unaware of the storm circling my thoughts.
“I should get back to work,” I tell him softly, more for myself than for him. “You behave while I’m gone, okay?”
The monitor answers with its quiet, consistent beeping.
I finish my checks, update his chart, and step back into the corridor. The ICU hums around me, nurses passing, wheels squeaking, life and near-death brushing shoulders without ceremony. Normally, this steadies me. Today, it barely registers.
I keep seeing Khai’s face instead.
Not the sharp edges. Not the violence I know lives beneath his skin. But the certainty. The way he’d looked at me like I was something already claimed, already decided.
I’m not yours, I repeat silently. The words don’t feel as strong as they did before.
By the time I reach the nurses’ station, my shoulders ache with tension. I log my last notes, check the time, and feel the faintest rush of relief when I realise my shift is finally over.
