The words take a moment to land.
"You knew they might come for me tonight."
He closes his eyes. "Yes."
"And you sent me anyway."
"I had teams positioned."
"Yousent me anyway. Without telling me." My voice cracks. "I was bait."
He doesn't deny it.
"We had backup in position."
"Not close enough. Not fast enough." I pull my hand from his, and the loss of contact feels like tearing. "You used me."
"I was trying to…"
"What? Protect the network? Gain tactical advantage?" I push myself up despite the pain, needing distance, needing to not be touching him. "Did you even consider telling me the truth?"
"If you knew, your reactions wouldn't have been genuine. They might have suspected."
"So you let me walk in blind. Let me think it was routine. Let me…" My voice breaks, and I hate myself for it. "I trusted you."
The words hit him like physical blows. I watch his face crumble, watch the walls he's been rebuilding since we left the street finally give way.
"Celeste."
"No." I hold up a hand, and he stops. "I can't do this right now. I can't look at you and reconcile the person who just killed six vampires to save me with the person who put me in danger in the first place."
"I will spend the rest of my existence making this right."
"I don't know if you can."
The words hang between us, heavy and final. His face is alandscape of devastation, guilt, and grief, and something that looks like his heart breaking in real time.
Good, some petty part of me thinks. Let him feel it.
But another part, the part that remembers how gently he touched my face, how his voice cracked when he said he thought he'd lost me, that part wants to take the words back. Wants to reach for him. Wants to pretend I don't know what I know.
I don't reach for him.
"Leave," I say quietly. "Please."
For a moment, I think he'll argue. The Maximus I've come to know doesn't accept dismissal, doesn't cede ground, doesn't give up control.
But this Maximus, the one covered in blood and stripped of defenses, just nods.
"I'll send Dalton back in," he says.
He stands. He walks to the door. He pauses with his hand on the frame, his back to me, every line of his body speaking of words he wants to say and can't.
Then he's gone.
I sit alone in the medical wing, surrounded by the smell of blood and antiseptic, and I allow myself to feel.
Chapter
