Page 49 of Dirty Game

I set her on the bed, careful not to jar the arm with the bruise.

For a second, I watch her again: chest rising and falling, lips parted slightly, a smudge of ink on her cheekbone.

I should leave. Go back to the room, pace out the rest of my insomnia until morning.

Instead, I linger, drawn in by the gravity of her sleep.

There’s something in the way she lets herself be carried—like she’s always known she’d have to rely on someone else to move her when she couldn’t do it herself.

Or maybe it’s just exhaustion.

She stirs as I start to pull away. Eyes slit open, glazed with confusion.

For a moment, I think she’s going to panic, but then her gaze lands on me and she relaxes, tension draining from her jaw.

“Sorry,” she murmurs, the word barely formed.

“For what?”

She shrugs, eyelids fluttering. “Didn’t mean to… fall asleep.” Her voice is soft, almost like a child’s.

“It’s my house,” I say. “You’re allowed.”

She closes her eyes, then opens them again. “Will you stay?”

The question lands like a bullet. I’m not sure if she means the room, the bed, or something bigger.

I don’t know what to say, so I sit on the edge of the mattress.

My hands rest on my knees, knuckles gone white.

I stare at the carpet, at the pattern in the weave, at anything but her.

“I’m not tired,” I say, which is a lie.

She’s watching me. I feel it, a weight on the side of my face. “I won’t tell anyone.”

I laugh, a dry crackle. “What, that the great King Bane needs a nap?”

Her lips curve. It’s not quite a smile, but it’s closer than anything I’ve seen from her awake. “That you’re not a monster all the time.”

The words don’t sting.

If anything, they settle something inside me.

I lie back, fully clothed, arms crossed behind my head.

She shifts, inching closer, until she’s curled into the space between my chest and shoulder.

Her head rests on my arm.

I can smell her hair—shampoo, strawberry something, and underneath it, the metallic trace of adrenaline.

She’s asleep in seconds. I can feel the heat of her, the faint pulse at her temple.

I don’t move.

For the first time in five years, the ceiling isn’t crawling with memories or ghosts.