Page 109 of Into Pitch

She isn’t broken, but she never was. She was only contained and compressed by years of being told to swallow, endure, and survive quietly. And tonight? Tonight she expanded.

Stepping forward, I bridge the gap between us. Each movement careful not because I fear her, but because I respect the thing she is right now. She’s not prey or fragile, but something sharp and exquisite.

I pause in front of her, close enough that I can see the blood freckling her sleeves and the delicate curves of her face. A picturesque mask of freckles she’s never had before, but I find is devastating against the steel-green of her eyes.

I don’t bother to look at Peter as I lift my mask, interest warped into awe as I study her. She doesn’t flinch under my attention, but holds my gaze like she’s daring me to see all of it and decide who she has become anyway.

Fuck.

This is not exactly what I had panned, but it is better.

Not the slaughter, that I had pinned to a T to my great amusement. No, it’s this thing in my chest that I hadn’t expected.

I have spent my entire life believing so whole heartedly in patterns. I observe, I test, I apply pressure, and I see what breaks because of it. But Sadie shatters that every time I try, and I—fuck, I want her all the more because of it.

She belongs here at Pitch.

She belongs to me.

The possessiveness doesn’t come like a sudden strike. It unfurls slowly, inevitability masquerading as logic. Of course I would feel this way and this would be our conclusion. She has seen what I am and stepped closer anyway. She has blood on her hands and not a single hint of apology in her eyes. She crossed the line people don’t come back from and she is still herself.

No.

Maybe that’s not right.

She is more.

I reach out before I can think better of it, my hand sliding to cup her face and then tangle back in her messy blonde hair. Tugging sharply so that her breath catches the way I like and she bares her throat to me. Submission in its most simplistic form.

Her pulse is racing against my wrist, but I can also see it in her throat. Underneath that adrenaline though, I can see the satisfaction in her gaze. How alive she feels here in an environment built for us both.

“You did well,” I praise.

She hums and wets her lips, ignoring the blood that stains them as she peers up at me in anticipation. I hold her captive as I glance past her finally to the body on the floor. To the ruin of a man who thought he could take and never be seen for what he has.

Someone will clean it up, I’m sure.

For now, I focus on the woman standing in front of me, bloodied and unrepentant, eyes bright with something feral and honest. I feel it settle fully then in the face of everything that is and ever will be.

Love is not the right word.

Love is too soft for what I feel for her.

This is recognition at the deepest level. This is knowing, with absolute certainty, that there is no version of the future where I let her walk away. Not because she knows too much but because she belongs to my world now. Because I made her the monster and she has shown me she can stand in it. And I refuse to go back to a life where she isn’t in it.

I stroke my thumb along the blood at her jaw, holding her steady as I marvel at the creature she is.

“Let’s go home.”

“Which one?” She teases.

I grin, catching her bottom lip beneath my thumb. “The one I stole you away to.”

The forest rolls past the windows of Alex’s car in a blur of dark greens and shadow, but I’m not really seeing it. My body still burns, adrenaline and something deeper winding together in my chest like a knot that hasn’t decided whether it’s going to unravel or tighten.

I keep my hands in my lap because I’m half convinced that if I start touching him, I won’t be able to stop.

Alex’s focus stays dutifully on the road, his jaw is tight and his posture is loose, but something tells me he’s as alert as I am. Just as aware that this car does indeed have the ability to park. And that we do indeed have the ability to crawl all over each other.