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TWENTY-THREE

Jamie

The way Killian touched me, held me. How I came apart, not when he was rough, but when his voice was low, when his hands slowed and his mouth pressed gently against my jaw as if he gave a shit.

It reminded me of a moment I’d buried deep—a time when someone had touched me like that, once, before the world had taught me gentleness came with strings, with lies, with pain dressed in kindness.

That gentleness was the beginning of the end.

It always had been. Rough, I could handle.

Rough made sense. But kindness? That could destroy me.

What the fuck was that about? I couldn’t handle that.

I didn’t want gentle. Didn’t want to be seen.

I needed hard and fast and meaningless. That was what kept me safe .

I pointed at him, not caring how much it hurt when my burns stretched. “Get out.”

Killian blinked, but I didn’t wait for him to argue. I got up, unsteady, and stomped to my room, every step screaming.

“Fuck off!” I yelled because silence was too much.

I climbed into my bed, into the tangle of blankets and sheets smelling like old soap and the heat of old nightmares. Familiar. Safe. Mine.

I curled into myself and stared at the wall.

I didn’t want gentle. Not from him. Not from anyone. The last time someone had touched me with care—my dad on a good day—he’d smiled while breaking me in half. Kindness had been the mask pain wore, and I’d learned to run from it faster than I ever had from fists. At least violence was honest.

Because if Killian could make me fall apart with kindness, what the hell else could he break in me?

I woke up to pain.

Not the sharp kind that stole your breath, but the deep, dragging kind that settled in your bones like it was planning to stay. My muscles were stiff, locked tight. Every breath scraped raw across bruised ribs. The meds had worn off hours ago, but I hadn’t wanted to wake Killian .

Because the asshole had opened my door, brought in pills and water, and stayed.

That part made no sense. I’d told him to leave, but he was still here, quiet, still, sitting in a chair he’d dragged in from the kitchen.

“What’r’you’doin?” I rasped.

“It lives,” he deadpanned.

I tried to sit up. My body shut that down fast. “Fuck.”

Killian didn’t move. Didn’t offer help. Just sat there, hands resting loosely on his knees, watching me come undone one inch at a time.

I hated how much I wanted him to reach for me.

But worse than that was remembering what happened before I blacked out and how he’d pulled me apart with gentle freaking care.

“Why are you still here?” I asked, my voice scraping.

“You want me to go?”

I opened my mouth, then shut it again. “You shouldn’t have stayed.”

“I know,” he said. “I stayed anyway.”

The silence between us turned thick, too charged.

And I couldn’t stop remembering. The way he’d kissed me last night—as if I were something more than fire and sharp edges.

His hands on my face. His mouth on mine.

The frantic, tangled way we’d grabbed at each other like we were drowning and neither one of us cared what it cost.

I’d needed it. Needed him. And he’d let me have it.

“Last night was a mistake,” I said, but the words came out too fast, too brittle.

I hesitated, jaw tight, eyes flicking away.

“You shouldn’t have let me—” The end of the sentence frayed.

I wanted to blame him. Needed to. But the truth was messier, tangled with things I didn’t want to feel, let alone say.

“I didn’t let you do anything,” Killian cut in, voice low. “You weren’t in control. Neither was I. We both took what we needed.”

I swallowed hard, voice raw. “I used you.”

“Bullshit. You think I didn’t know exactly what was happening? You think I didn’t want it?”

“I didn’t ask you to want it.”

“No.” Killian’s expression was thoughtful. “You asked with your hands. With your mouth. And I said yes.”

“You kissed me like it meant something.”

“It did.”

The words landed like a fist to the ribs. I flinched. “I don’t need that shit,” I said, quieter now. “Why are you here? ”

“I’m waiting.”

“For what?”

“For you to stop pretending you don’t want someone to stay.”

I had no answer. I just lay there, hurting. Hating myself for the part that wanted to believe him.

I glanced at my arm where gauze wrapped tight around the worst of the burns, the edges stained faint brown with antiseptic. Medical tape tugged at the fine hairs on my skin, and underneath I could feel the throb of broken flesh and healing nerves, raw and angry beneath the sterile cover.

“More scars,” I murmured.

“We all have them,” Killian murmured. He rolled up his sleeve. A mess of patterns snaked up his forearm, jagged and unforgiving. I hadn’t seen them before—had I ever seen him naked? Barely.

“I said no to a john once,” he said. “Didn’t go well.”

It wasn’t a confession. It was a shared truth. Something fresh to match the new wounds I had.

I turned my face away. “You don’t get to swap scars to make me feel better just because you fucked me.”

“I didn’t fuck you,” he said with patience. “I held you while you fell apart. You trusted me and kissed me as if it mattered.”

“I fucking hate you!” I yelled, but the words felt hollow even as they left my mouth. What I really hated was the way he’d touched something buried so deep I didn’t have a name for it. I hated that he stayed. I hated that part of me wanted him to. Needed him to.

“No. You don’t.”

I closed my eyes, throat burning. I hated him for being right. Hated myself more for wanting to do it again. Then, the door opened. The air shifted.

Rio stepped inside, filling the doorway like a storm cloud. Shoulders squared, eyes narrowed. He looked at Killian, then at me, then back again.

“Rio,” Killian said.

“Killian,” Rio replied.

Rio was big, but Killian was bigger—taller, broader.

He didn’t flinch. He didn’t try to puff up.

He just met Rio’s stare and nodded once.

Rio returned the nod. Some quiet understanding passed between them.

A boundary drawn, a warning acknowledged.

It pissed me off that they were having some silent conversation about me without including me.

“Stop doing that shit! You’re not passing me over to him as if he’s in charge of me now! ”

Killian stood. Didn’t look at me. Didn’t touch me. Stopped at the edge of the bed, as if he were checking that I could hold myself upright without him.

“Rest,” he said. Not a suggestion. A promise.

Then, he left.

Rio stepped in after him and shut the door.

His expression was unreadable. Then, he looked around the room—the crumpled sheets, the mug on the sill, the folded hoodie Killian had left behind.

“I’ve seen the aftermath before,” he said. “When you chase the fire just to feel something, you break, but this doesn’t look like wreckage, more like someone other than me is trying to keep you safe.”

I didn’t look at him. “Don’t read into it.”

“I don’t have to. It’s written all over you.”

I closed my eyes. “It was nothing.”

“Was it?”

He leaned forward again. “I’ve got your back.”

“You don’t like him.”

“No,” he admitted. “It’s not that I don’t like him. He makes me… uneasy.”

He rubbed a hand over his jaw, finally dropping into the chair beside the bed. “I’ve been the one keeping an eye on you. Since the beginning. When things went to shit, it was me making sure you got out in one piece. And now there’s him. It feels weird. Like I’m supposed to just… hand it over.”

I turned my head, eyes narrowed. “I’m not a thing to be handed over.”

Rio huffed a breath, sat forward, elbows on his knees. “No, you’re someone who needs stability. An anchor. And maybe Killian is that.” He looked away, his voice quieter. “Not some beaten-up enforcer like me who only knows how to make people bleed.”

I smirked, despite myself. “I love that beaten-up asshole.”

Rio snorted, shaking his head with a crooked grin. “Love you, too.”

“I dunno how, but Killian makes me feel…” The words caught, tight in my throat.

There was so much emotion in me—rage, need, shame, fear—and I needed to vocalize it, but how?

I didn’t have the language for softness.

I wasn’t built for it. I only knew how to throw fire at what I didn’t understand and hope it didn’t burn me back.

“Yeah,” Rio said. “Can he stop you burning?”

“I don’t know.” That’s the part that scares me, too. Because wanting something real meant confronting all the reasons I’d lit matches in the first place.

I knew what the textbooks said about people like me.

Pyromania, arson—whatever the actual reason was why I burned—wasn’t about destruction, not really.

It was about control. Release. A compulsion building pressure in your chest until fire was the only thing that made it stop.

The act itself wasn’t about rage—it was ritual.

The anticipation, the ignition, the glow.

The aftermath. It gave structure to the chaos inside.

Most people thought it was about hurting others. It wasn’t. It was about the ache that wouldn’t let go, the one I tried to silence with flames. A temporary high, a flicker of control in a world that never gave me any.

But Killian—he short-circuited all of that. He looked at me like I didn’t need to burn to matter. And that terrified me more than anything I’d ever set alight.

I lay there, silent. “I don’t know how to want something without ruining it,” I whispered.

“I want him, but not just sex. I want him to see me— really see me—and still choose to stay, and that single thought terrifies me more than anything. I let him in, and now I don’t know how to close the door.

Fuck. What if I need him more than he needs me? ”

Rio’s eyes widened, and he sighed. “Fuck Jamie. It’s okay to fall in love with someone. ”

“I’m not in love,” I blurted. “I don’t know how to be in love.”