Page 141 of Shattered In Darkness

She looks at me like she’s searching for a lie, but she won’t find one. I don’t hide anymore, not from her. “You aren’t a monster,” she says. The words tremble, but they land.

I wish I could believe her. “I am what he built. The kill dog. The shadow. But you—” My voice cracks, a break in the emptiness. “You’re the only reason I even remember how to feel anything. If I had to kill the whole world to keep you safe, I would.”

I can hear her heartbeat, the flutter of her breath, the tight breaths stuck in her throat. Blue light etches the wall, outlining her silhouette. I want to pull her close, keep her pressed against my chest until nothing outside can ever reach her again.

Lola leans into me. Just the smallest touch, but it sends a shock through my system. “What happens now?” she asks. “Are we…free?”

That’s a joke. The universe doesn’t do freedom. “I don’t know,” I say, honesty barreling out. “But he can’t hurt us anymore. No one can, if I have anything to say about it.”

Her hand trembles in mine. I squeeze. I want her anchored, to something real, something that won’t vanish when the morning burns off. “You did it for me,” she says. “Everything.”

I nod. Simple as breathing. “For you. Always for you.” The things I’ve done, the blood on my hands, the memories that hunt me in the dark. All worth it, if she’s here, if she can finally breathe.

She lets herself breathe, just a little. Relax. Her shoulders slump, the fight leaking out of her. “I always thought Marcus would win. That men like him always do.”

I shake my head. “No one’s winning here.” My thumb strokes her wrist—pulse, fragile, alive. “You survived. That’s more than he ever did.”

She folds into me. Flesh, heat, reality. Her hair brushes my jaw, soft and wild. “I don’t know how to be normal after this,” she admits. Her voice is so small. “It’s like… everything’s burned out.”

I understand. More than anyone. “There is no normal,” I say. “There’s just before and after. We build from ashes. That’s all.”

Lola looks up, eyes glassy, pupils wide. “Does it ever stop hurting?”

I shake my head, no lies. “Not really. But you learn to live with it. Or you find something that makes it mean less.” My hand moves to her cheek, thumb over her jaw, possessive and tender and so fucking desperate. “You make it mean less.”

We sit in the blue cold, wrapped up in the static of a world that doesn’t want us. I watch the days of my life flicker across that screen. They call it justice. I call it hollow.

But Lola is here, alive, skin warm under my hand. That’s what matters.

She leans in, presses her forehead to mine. I inhale her. “Thank you,” she murmurs. “For saving me. Even if it cost you everything.”

My mouth finds hers, gentle, bruised, a promise carved in the dark. “You’re everything,” I whisper. “There was never anything else worth saving.”

Her breath shudders. I want to keep her like this, wrapped up tight, blue-lit and safe, nothing outside, not ever again. Maybe if I hold her hard enough, the old world will finally dissolve. Maybe the stains on my soul won’t show up in the daylight. Maybe.

But I know better. The scars are there. I can only keep her close. I can only keep her mine.

She buries her face in my shirt. “You could’ve gotten away. Started over somewhere. Why stay?”

“Because I want you.” I run my hand through her hair. “I could never leave you with the monsters.”

She shivers. Not fear, something old breaking open, a cage with rusted bars. “I still don’t get it. Why me?”

I shake my head. The urge to devour her, to make her understand, rises like a fever. “Because you’re the only one who ever looked past the surface. The only one who made me feel fucking real. Maybe that makes me weak. I don’t care.”

She breathes slowly. “You’re not weak. You’re—” The word dies. She can’t finish it. I fill the silence with my hands, my body, occupying the world so nothing else can intrude.

We stay there, locked up in new silence. All the old ghosts howling in the corners, but for now, caged.

I watch her. The way she calms, heartbeat evening out. The way hope sneaks across her face, like a cat burglar breaking into a fortress. Fragile and almost invisible, but it’s there. A thread of what might be.

“Can we just… stay like this?” she asks.

I nod. “Yeah. For as long as you want.”

So we do. Minutes bleed together. Outside, the world howls for answers, blood, spectacle. In here, it’s just Lola and me, breathing in the blue.

She musters a laugh, a real one, weak but alive. “You’re not what I expected, Brody Voss.”