Storm clouds still hung low, bruised purple and gray, but the rain had softened into a fine mist that turned the streetlights hazy and unreal. Everything looked slightly off, like the world had shifted half an inch to the left and no one else had noticed.
We passed the train station, the river walk, the quiet residential streets where houses leaned against each other. This was my terrain. My safe haven.
And I was leaving it in a vintage car with a man who had punched someone through the inside of a van.
My pulse finally settled somewhere between thrilled and terrified.
Arthur’s grip on the steering wheel shifted slightly. “Are you truly all right?” he asked. “Physically, at least?”
I blinked, the question catching up to me a second late. “Yes. I think so.”
“I need to be certain,” he said. His voice stayed even, but there was an edge underneath it now. “You didn’t strike your head. You didn’t lose consciousness. You aren’t dizzy.”
It wasn’t phrased like a question, but a checklist.
I did a quick internal scan, the way I always did. Wrists sore. Pride bruised. Nervous system still vibrating like it had been plugged into an outlet. Nothing alarming.
“I’m okay,” I said. “A little shaken. A little annoyed. No concussion. No bleeding. No sudden urge to lie down in the road.”
His shoulders eased a fraction.
“That’s good,” he said. Then, quieter, “I’m sorry.”
I glanced at him. “For the van thing or the existential terror?”
“For all of it. You were targeted because of me.”
My stomach dipped.
He kept his eyes on the road, jaw tight. “I brought danger into your world without meaning to. That is… not acceptable.”
I folded my hands in my lap, suddenly acutely aware of how close I still felt to everything that had happened. “You didn’t ask some guy to shove me into a van.”
“No,” he agreed. “But I am the reason he was there.”
The weight of that settled between us, and silence stretched for anawkward minute.
“I will make this right,” he continued. “However you require. I swear it.”
I huffed out a breath. “You know, most people say ‘I’ll buy you a drink,’ not ‘I’ll atone.’”
His lips twitched. “I can do both.”
I looked out the window, watching the river slide past.
“Let’s start with not letting me get kidnapped twice in one week,” I said. “We can negotiate beverages after.”
“That’s… reasonable,” he said.
Absurdly, that helped me regain my calm.
After a few minutes of comfortable silence, he said, “I’m glad you came.”
My stomach performed an elaborate and dramatic pirouette. “I figured you’d need a translator for… librarians.”
“I don’t mind needing you,” he said simply.
Oh. Well then.
