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The words land low and heavy, threading straight into memory before I can stop them.

I walk to the middle of the floor. The limp flares. I don’t let it show.

“Hatchet.”

I grip it harder. The handle is warm from my palm.

He circles me—slow, deliberate. I feel his attention like pressure on my skin. Every breath. Every shift of weight. Every place my leg betrays me.

“You’re leaning.”

“I’m not⁠—”

“You are.”

Heat rushes my face.

“Shift your weight.”

I try. Pain burns up my thigh into my hip. My jaw locks.

“Good,” he says quietly. “That means you’re using the right muscles.”

The wall is cold against my back, seeping through fabric and bone. Malek fills the doorway in front of me, cutting off what little light the barn lets in. Shadow and heat and the sound of his breathing—that’s all there is.

He isn’t touching me.

It still feels like he is.

“You’re leaving your right side open.”

My throat tightens. “Hard not to,” I whisper. “You’ve got me cornered.”

“I’m not touching you.”

I swallow. The sound is loud in my ears. “It doesn’t feel like it.”

His eyes drop—not to my hands, not to the hatchet—to my mouth. Just for a second. Gone before I can decide what it means. Back to my eyes. Something tight and sharp moves through him, like a flinch he doesn’t finish.

“Malek—”

The name slips out before I choose it.

I lift my hand slowly. Not brave. Not steady. Just…inevitable.

He doesn’t stop me.

My fingertip hovers a breath away from the scar on his face. Close enough to see how the skin there never figured out how to be whole again. Close enough that I can feel his warmth without touching it.

I don’t think about what it means.

I think about what it must have felt like—standing still while someone decided where to cut.

His throat works once.

“That,” he says quietly, and the word lands heavier than it should, “bought Carter his freedom.”

Something caves in my chest. Not sharp. Not loud. Just sudden and empty.