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The truth doesn’t weaken me. It steadies me.

“But you are.” I step closer, close enough to smell blood and dirt and him. “You’re the most violent thing this world has left that still knows what it’s protecting.”

His eyes darken.

“If anyone can teach me how to keep what’s mine from being taken again,” I say, “it’s you.”And I don’t blink.

“I won’t make you like me.” His voice is quiet, almost gentle—but there’s distance in it. Cold, controlled. The kind that keeps things alive by keeping them away.

“You don’t have to.” I step forward until my boots sink into dirt slick with blood. The smell hits—iron and rot and something final—but I don’t slow. “The world already has.”

Cass gone.

Scarlett dead.

Me, standing where everything else fell apart.

“I’m what’s left,” I say, and the words land steady. “And I just want to live long enough to choose what I become. Teach me how to live in a world that only respects teeth.”

Something dark gathers behind his eyes. I see it cresting. I don’t back down.

“I don’t want to depend on you, Malek.” My voice doesn’t shake. “There will be days you aren’t here. And I don’t want promises or apologies or whatever you tell yourself so you can sleep at night.” A breath. Even. Controlled. “Decent men don’t last anymore. Men like you do.”

The silence stretches. Thick. Pressurized. His gaze locks onto mine like he’s weighing whether I’ll flinch.

“I don’t want your guilt,” I finish. “I want to survive.”

The storm inside me is gone now—burned clean to something quieter. Harder.

“You were born for violence,” I say, low. Certain. “You don’t just endure it—you know how to stand inside it. When the world burns, you don’t run. You shape the fire.” My eyes never leave his. “That isn’t your flaw. It’s your truth.”

“So you see me as violent, little crow?”

I don’t hesitate.

“Beautifully so.”

For a heartbeat, something in him wavers—holy or damned, I can’t tell. His mismatched eyes catch the light, silver and brown cutting deep, and the space between us pulls tight with it.

“I won’t make you like me,” he breathes, the words fraying as they leave him. “Monsters don’t raise saints. They only learn to love the sound of breaking them.”

I don’t rush to fill the space. I step into it.

“You already taught me something.”

He stills.

“That monsters don’t get to decide what survives them.”

The words linger between us, thin as smoke. For once, he doesn’t reach for anger to smother them. He just breathes—slow, rough, like the air has to fight its way through scars before it reaches his lungs.

When he finally speaks, it’s low. Worn. Decided.

“Fine.” A pause. “You want to survive? Then we do it my way.”

The ground doesn’t literally move, but my body reacts like it does—ribs tightening, spine going alert, something old and instinctive answering the shift in him. Whatever line we were standing on, we’ve stepped over it now.

I swallow, heart loud in my ears. “How old are you today?”