Page 27 of Fractured Devotion (Tainted Souls #1)

I stay close to the lab as the rest of the morning drips by in calculated silence, my eyes trained on any flicker of a shift—inside the clinic, inside her.

Celeste doesn’t speak to anyone more than necessary. She keeps her head down, focused and distracted in all the right ways. But her hands tremble slightly when she thinks no one’s watching. Her smile is short and strained. She’s unraveling, piece by beautiful piece, and no one else sees it.

No one but me.

And I can’t decide if I hate that or live for it.

I watch her through the reinforced glass lining the hallway, just a sliver of her profile visible as she types into the lab terminal. There’s a tension in her shoulders that didn’t exist a week ago. Not before the van. Not before the bar. Not before me.

I shouldn’t enjoy the power in that, but I do.

I walk in without knocking.

She doesn’t jump, but her eyes cut to me, sharp and assessing. “Need something?”

“Just checking in. You didn’t look alright this morning.”

“I’m fine,” she says.

“You’re not.”

She sets her pen down slowly. “I don’t need a babysitter.”

I walk closer, not stopping until I’m leaning a palm against the edge of her workstation and invading her space just enough to feel the ripple of tension between us.

“No,” I say. “You need someone honest.”

She stares at me. “And that’s you?”

I don’t blink. “It could be.”

There’s a beat of silence before she exhales and looks away. But not before I see it—the crack. The inch of space I’ve been carving open between us.

I lean down, closer. My voice is low. “Let me take you somewhere tonight. Just away from this place. One hour. No pressure.”

She doesn’t answer right away. Then, she eventually mutters, “Where?”

“You’ll see.”

Her lips twitch. It’s not quite a smile. But it’s not a no either.

I walk out before she can reconsider, and later, I wait for her outside the clinic.

Around eight, I head toward her office and knock lightly on the frame. She’s still there, hunched over her desk, her brows furrowed at the screen. She looks up at me, blinking like she’d forgotten anyone else existed.

“Give me five minutes,” she says, standing. “I need to change.”

I nod. “Take your time.”

I linger in the empty hallway, the faint buzz of fluorescents holding the space together.

She disappears down the hall toward the elevator.

I know where she’s going. She’s going to her backup apartment three floors above the clinic.

Few know about it, and fewer still would understand why she needs a space like that so close.

But I do. It’s hers. A safehouse tucked inside concrete and silence, a place where she keeps another version of herself—less guarded, more raw.

I imagine her moving through that space, pulling off her sterile uniform and letting the day slide from her skin.

She’ll choose something soft, something that doesn’t remind her of the lab, of the cold clinical distance she wraps around herself like a ritual.

And for a moment, I let myself picture her barefoot, hair loose, and shedding everything but herself.

Exactly seven minutes later, the elevator chimes.

She walks out wearing a soft knit sweater in charcoal gray and faded jeans that hug her hips in all the right ways. Her hair is down, a little tousled. It’s not the steel-plated poise I’m used to, and it does something to me. It softens the hard edges of my thoughts.

My throat tightens at the sight of her like that, unguarded and uncertain.

I’m already rising from the bench, where I’d been waiting. Her eyes flick to me as she approaches, her expression unreadable.

I stand straighter, meeting her halfway. “Hey,” I say, my voice steady as I nod toward the car waiting just outside. “You ready?”

She glances up, then at me. “Am I going to regret this?”

I smile. “Probably. But not tonight.”

We drive in silence at first. I take us through the old part of town and down winding streets that eventually spill into the edge of the wooded ridge. The road opens into an overlook—isolated, forgotten by time, and untouched by the clinic’s reach, as if it belonged to a different world entirely.

We pull to a stop at the edge of the overlook, the tires crunching over gravel as I ease the car into park. The engine ticks as it cools. I glance at her, waiting to see if she hesitates.

She doesn’t.

She opens her door and steps out, her boots landing softly on the dirt path.

The breeze pulls at the ends of her hair, catching the scent of something faint and clean—maybe the shampoo she used upstairs.

She doesn’t say anything as she walks to the edge of the cliff.

She just rests her arms along the rusted guardrail and stares out at the falling dusk.

Her body is loose but not relaxed. She’s holding something in, bracing for a conversation we both know is coming. I let her have the stillness for a few seconds longer before joining her.

“You brought me to a cliff?” she says.

“There’s a view,” I offer.

She snorts. “How romantic.”

I move beside her. “Not everything has to be dramatic. Sometimes, silence does the work better.”

We stand like that for a long while.

Then, she asks, “What are you doing, Kade?”

I turn toward her. “Trying not to lie to you.”

She looks at me then, really looks. “You said someone wants me rattled. Still think that?”

“Yes. And I see that it’s working.”

She exhales slowly, the sound threaded with resignation.

“I figured as much. First, the van, then someone creeping through my apartment like I’m some kind of experiment.

They took a picture of me when I was sleeping.

And now this constant itch in my skin, like I’m being watched even when I’m alone.

It’s not surprising anymore. It’s just… bone-deep exhausting. ”

“Wait, what photo?” I ask, my voice tight. I turn to face her fully, the tension in my spine hardening. “What do you mean someone took a picture of you?”

Her lips twitch, as though she had expected the reaction. “It was slipped into Mara’s locker a few days ago. It was printed in black and white, and I was in bed. You could see my head on the pillow and the shape of my body under the sheets.”

I go still, and my jaw clenches. “Jesus, Celeste…”

She shifts her weight, suddenly uncomfortable. “They didn’t break in. At least not then. There were no signs of forced entry. But that shot… it wasn’t taken from the hallway or the street. It came from inside.”

I step closer, my voice steady and sharp. “And you didn’t tell anyone?”

Her eyes narrow. “Tell who? The surveillance team? I don’t trust any of them. And I wasn’t exactly sure what you were playing at either.”

I run a hand over my face, fighting the growl building in my chest. “I didn’t know, Celeste. I swear to God, I didn’t know about that photo.”

She watches me like she’s gauging every microexpression. “That’s why you look ready to murder someone?”

“Because I am,” I bite out. “Because I can see it now. They’re not just watching you. They’re hunting you.”

“I didn’t even know I’ll be telling anyone else. I didn’t know who to trust.”

My hands curl at my sides. I feel the heat rise to my jaw, and the dark urge to find whoever did that and tear the breath from their lungs. “You should have told me.”

She lifts a brow. “Would you have told me?”

We stare at each other, the question thick between us.

I exhale through my nose before answering, “No. But I would’ve protected you.”

“I don’t need a protector. I need the truth.”

I move closer still, just inches from her now. “You have no idea how badly I want to give you both.”

She looks back out over the cliff. “I don’t trust you.”

I nod slowly. “You shouldn’t.”

A beat passes.

“But I will,” she says. “If you give me a reason.”

I watch her in the dimming light.

She’s cracking. She’s not broken, not yet. But she’s closer to me than she was yesterday. And tomorrow?

She might just fall into my hands.

“You shouldn’t go back there tonight.”

She tilts her head, her eyes narrowing as she studies my face. “To my apartment?”

I nod once. “Yes. Not after what you just told me. They’ve been inside already. And they took a photo of you while you were sleeping. That wasn’t just surveillance. That was a message. They could come back, and you shouldn’t be there alone.”

She sighs and looks away, then glances back at me with a sly little twist of her lips. “What, you offering me your couch? Or would I get the bed?”

I raise an eyebrow. “You’d get the bed. I don’t sleep much anyway.”

She actually laughs, softly and unexpectedly. “Relax, I have somewhere else I can go. I have a backup apartment in the clinic building. Three floors up. It’s locked down and off the books, and I’m the only one who ever uses it.”

That pulls a little of the tension from my shoulders, but not all. “You sure it’s secure?”

“As secure as anything gets around here,” she replies, her voice softening. “But thanks for caring. Even if your delivery is a little terrifying.”

“I’m not trying to scare you, Celeste. I’m trying to make sure you wake up tomorrow.”

She studies me for a long second with something unreadable in her expression. Then, she nods. “Okay. I’ll go upstairs tonight.”

“Good,” I murmur. “You need the rest.”

She straightens up slightly, her expression cooling again, as if catching herself getting too close.

She doesn’t say anything, but she nods once, just barely.

We both head back toward the car, and I quickly open the car door for her before she can reach for it. She slides inside with a sigh, pulls the seatbelt across her body, then watches me through the glass as I round the front and slip into the driver’s seat.

The ride back is quiet, but not empty.