Page 47

"Adjust."

She studies me for a long moment, and when she speaks again, the anger has changed. It's quieter now. More dangerous.

"You're afraid."

Every muscle in my body stills.

"No."

"You're a terrible liar."

"I'm an exceptional liar."

"Not about this."

She steps closer. There's barely a foot between us now.

"This isn't about whether I understand the risk," she says. "I do. It's about you deciding that fear gives you ownership over every choice I make."

"I don't own you."

"Then act like it."

I look at her and see the car coming again. Her body against mine when I dragged her clear. The sound of metal striking stone, and how easily the angle could have been different.

Ten centimeters. Half a second. A mistake.

That's all death ever needs.

"You don't understand."

"Then explain it."

I can't. Not because I lack the words, but because saying them would make them real. I can't tell her that when I woke to find her side of the bed empty, my first thought wasn't that she'd gone to work.

It was that someone had taken her.

I can't tell her that seeing her bent over those screens made something inside my chest unlock so violently I wanted to break every window in the city just to have somewhere to put it.

I can't tell her that I'm beginning to measure rooms by where she is standing in them. So, I give her the only thing I can.

An order.

"You're staying."

Her jaw tightens, and she turns toward the door. "Fine."

I blink. That was too easy. "Fine?"

"Yes."

"You're agreeing?"

"Absolutely."

I don't believe her for a second.

She reaches the door and looks back at me.