I don’t wait for a reply.
I check the time.
3:09 a.m.
Of course it is.
Jaxon will be awake. Keys will be too. Night work suits men like us, creatures who function better in the dark, where blood doesn’t stand out so starkly and ghosts feel easier to carry.
I swing my legs over the side of the bed. They tremble beneath me, weak with leftover adrenaline, with the echo of helplessness I refuse to acknowledge while I’m conscious. My heart is still beating too fast, like it doesn’t trust the world I’ve woken up in.
Good.
Neither do I.
I stand and head for the shower, the need for heat and control clawing through me. Water. Steam. Something real. Something I can feel that isn’t him.
As I walk, I flex my hands again.
They’re clean.
They don’t feel like it
Hot water slams into my skin, stealing the air from my lungs as it cascades down my body. I brace my hands against the tiled wall, head bowed, letting the heat bite, letting it hurt. I welcome the jolt. I need it. Need something sharp enough to tear me free from the remnants of that nightmare clinging to my bones.
Steam fills the space, thick and blinding, wrapping around me until the world narrows to nothing but heat and breath and the steady rush of water. Slowly, my pulse begins to settle. Slowly, the images loosen their grip.
And then,
Her.
Emmy.
Little Heaven.
The thought of her slips in uninvited, soft and dangerous all at once. I shut my eyes, jaw tightening as her face flashes behind my lids. I shouldn’t have gone to her. I know that. I shouldn’t have crossed that line, shouldn’t have let myself need the sight of her the way I did.
But I did.
I needed to see her.
Getting into her building had been easy, too easy. A quiet conversation, a thick envelope, an emergency key pressed into my palm. I could’ve broken the door if I wanted to. Forced my way in. It would’ve taken seconds.
I didn’t.
I couldn’t stand the thought of upsetting her. Of frightening her. Of leaving even the smallest crack in her world that I’d caused.
I just needed to see her.
The moment she walked through that door, something inside me stilled. Like the chaos in my head recognised her before I did. She didn’t scream. Didn’t run. Didn’t look at me like I was a monster standing in her living room.
She looked after me.
The memory tightens low in my chest.
She wanted answers. Wanted more of me than I could ever safely give. And I hated myself for it, for holding back, for keeping her in the dark, but I won’t drag her into the rot that follows my name. She is too clean for it. Too untouched.
And I refuse to let my father so much as glance in her direction.
