Page 79 of The Quiet After The Fall

“Oh my God.” Her hand flies to her mouth. “Oh my God, what—Knox⁠—”

“I’m fine.” Which is a damned good joke, considering I can barely stand upright.

“You are not fine, you’re bleeding, your—” She grabs my arm before I can sway into the doorframe, hauling me inside, kicking the door shut and locking all three locks. “Sit. Sit down right now.”

She gets me to the couch and I go down harder than I mean to, a groan coming out of me. I don’t even try to swallow the coppery taste in my mouth.

“Who did this to you?” She’s on her knees in front of me, hands hovering an inch away like she’s terrified to touch me. “Knox. Who?”

“Who else?” I manage, my head falling back against the cushion. “Moretti’s guy. Jumped me in my bedroom.”

Her jaw drops. “Was Ella there?”

“Nah,” I say. “Somewhere else.”

Slowly, she traces my swollen cheek, dragging her fingertip to the bridge on my glasses, making me wince. Then she moves lower, lifting my shirt. I try to hunch, to hide it. I don’t want her to worry. But there’s no stopping Sawyer when she’s on a mission.

“Oh my God. I’m calling 911.”

“No.” I catch her wrist before she can move. “No hospitals. No records. Please, Sawyer.”

“You might have broken ribs, you might have internal⁠—”

“I need you here. That’s it. That’s all I need right now.”

She stares at me, rolling her lip between her teeth. I know she wants to fight me. And hell, she’s right. I’ve already had cracked ribs from the accident. They were barely healed and they didn’t hurt nearly as much as I do now.

“Stay here.” She uses my knees to push up, hurrying into her bathroom. I fight to keep my eyes open, but she’s back quickly with a towel, pressing it to my wound. “You need to ice this. All of it.”

I let her fuss around me, icing my face, unlacing my boots, stripping off my filthy clothes and getting me set in her bed even when I protest that I’ll get her sheets dirty with blood. The moment my head hits her pillow and her comforting scent fills my nostrils, I melt. I can’t rest though, I need to keep her safe.

“I can’t believe you called your father.” She climbs on the other side of the bed, leaning close but still not touching. “After everything he’s done.”

“Didn’t have a choice.” I find her free hand and press it against my chest, right over the worst of the ache. Her touch soothes me, makes me feel something good beyond the pain. “I couldn’t come to you. Couldn’t leave you alone either. He was all I had.”

She goes quiet, deep in thought, and then carefully lays beside me. I move my arm, letting her curl in against my shoulder. Her breaths are shaky. Is she crying?

“I hate this,” she whispers. “I hate that you’re hurt because of me.”

“Not because of you.” I reach for her hand, and plant a kiss right in the center of her palm. “Because of them. And me. Never you.”

I try to count the seconds between one thought and the next. Try to keep some part of my senses focused on the door, the windows, the street noise outside. Vigilance is the only thing I’ve got left tonight, the only job that matters.

But her hand’s warm, rising and falling with every shallow breath I take, and her hair’s tickling my jaw, and the ache in my ribs is starting to feel far away, like it belongs to someone else.

“You should sleep,” she murmurs against my shoulder.

“Somebody should stay awake.”

“Me then.” Her thumb moves up and down my sternum, over the fine dusting of hair along my pecs, down my abdomen. “Close your eyes, Knox.”

I don’t mean to. I’m still running through the list of things I need to take care of, everything I need to watch, when my eyelids stop cooperating.

The last thing I register is the sound of her steady breaths and the care in her touch. Softness. My Sawyer.

Chapter 20

Sawyer