She fits perfectly.
I hold her in the darkness and listen to her breathe and try not to think about all the ways this could fall apart.
The hours crawl by. Eventually the sky begins to lighten, black fading to gray and then to pink as the sun rises over the hills behind us. I haven't slept at all. My eyes burn and my head aches, but I don't move. I just hold her and watch the light change and wait.
She stirs against me as dawn fully breaks, her body stretching in that half-conscious way that tells me she's surfacing. Her hand slides across my chest, pausing when she feels my heart pounding beneath her palm.
"Phoenix?" Her voice is rough with sleep, her eyes still heavy. "What time is it?"
"Early." I brush her hair back from her face. "Go back to sleep."
But she's already waking up, blinking at me. Her gaze sharpens as she takes in the tension in my jaw, the shadows under my eyes.
"You didn't sleep at all, did you?"
"I slept some."
"Liar." She props herself up on one elbow, studying my face. "What's wrong?"
Everything. Nothing. The world is falling apart and all I want is to stay in this bed with you forever.
"Nothing," I say. "Just couldn't turn my mind off."
She's quiet for a moment, her fingers tracing absent patterns on my chest. I can feel her thinking, working through whatever's going on behind those beautiful eyes.
"I keep seeing their faces," she says finally. "The detectives. The way Nowak looked at me, like he knew I was lying."
"You did fine."
"I was terrified."
"Terror is appropriate." I catch her hand and bring it to my lips, pressing a kiss against her knuckles. "But you didn't let it show. That's what matters."
She pulls her hand away and sits up, the sheet falling away to reveal the tank top she slept in. Her shoulders are tense, her spine rigid. I want to reach for her, pull her back down, lose myself in her body until neither of us can think about anything else.
Instead I wait.
"What if they find something?" she asks, not looking at me. "What if there's evidence you missed?"
"There isn't."
"You can't know that."
"I know." I sit up beside her, my hand finding the curve of her waist. "I was thorough, Jade. There's nothing connecting us to what happened."
She turns to face me, and the fear in her eyes is like a knife to my chest. This woman who faced down a monster, who survived what should have broken her, who chose to stay with me even knowing what I am. She's afraid now, not of me, but of losing everything we have.
"I can't stop thinking about it," she whispers. "Every time I close my eyes, I see him. I see the blood. I hear the sounds."
"I know."
"How do you do it? How do you seem so calm?"
I consider lying. Putting on the mask I've worn my entire life, the one that says nothing ever touches me, nothing ever gets through. But she deserves better than that. She deserves the truth, or at least as much of it as I can give her.
"I'm not calm," I admit. "I'm terrified. But not about the police or the evidence or getting caught." I turn her face toward me, forcing her to meet my eyes. "I'm terrified of losing you. That's the only thing that scares me anymore."
Something shifts in her expression. The fear doesn't disappear, but it softens into something else. Something warmer.
