Page 59 of Kill for a Kiss

I do. I’d do anything he said right now. The drink soothes the scratch in my throat, and my body relaxes at the taste. It’s mineral-heavy and faintly citrus. I can feel it soaking into the cracks left behind by the withdrawal.

“Electrolytes,” he says. “It’ll help. Trust me.”

Of course I do. I want to tell him that I’ve been trusting him this whole time.

He lowers the bottle once I’ve swallowed, and my eyes adjust. His hand lingers at my back as he helps me sit upright. Everything hurts in small, sharp ways, but he moves with care, explaining what else he’s giving me—painkillers, a bit of broth, a damp cloth to cool me down. Then tea. The same type as before. Familiar, woodsy, something I associate with him now.

At some point while I was out, he must’ve gone to get all this. He brought what would help just like he said he would.

“You’re worse than before,” he says. His eyes are on mine, calm and focused. But the line in his brow tells a different story.

I nod. I know he’s right. I can feel it. There’s no point in pretending. The withdrawal is heavier now. I can feel the grip of it behind my eyes and in my bones. Kys doesn’t leave quietly. And even though every part of me feels slow and stretched thin, my thoughts begin surfacing again. Memories stir at the edges, familiar and foreign. Pieces of a past I lived but couldn’t hold on to until now. They rise slowly, like driftwood breaking the surface after a storm.

Throughout the passing hours, Sterling stays close. He keepsmy water nearby, and helps me take the pills when I forget to. He doesn’t hover, but he doesn’t leave either. He makes sure I eat. He gives me time, but he doesn’t let me stall too long. He’s silently relentless. I like that about him. I like a lot of things about Sterling. I wish I could tell him that. But speaking still takes too much effort, and I’m not sure the words would come out the way I mean them.

But soon, time loses meaning. I drift for a while, then I surface to the press of a cool cloth against my forehead. His hand is careful and intentional, not calculated the way Clo’s were. This isn’t a performance. This is Sterling, without his mask, showing the worry in the lines of his beautiful face. I wish I wasn’t the reason. At the same time, I’m happy that he cares.

I fall asleep again. When I wake, it’s to the taste of broth and a spoon at my lips. There’s warmth close to me, along with the glimmer of silver and the rousing scent of woodsy warmth. It’s Sterling. His presence is quiet, but I know it’s him. I can feel the calm he brings into a room, even when I’m shaking.

He doesn’t speak. He waits, watching me, and letting me decide. I part my lips, and he feeds me without a word, slow and careful. I think I speak to him in the quiet spaces between sleep and waking. I think I say too much. Or maybe not enough. Nothing feels right, and everything feels too loud. I think I say Stan’s name. I’m afraid that I might’ve. But I don’t ask. I already know how Sterling reacts when Stan comes up. His silence changes. His expression hardens. Something in his eyes shutters. I don’t want to see that. I don’t want to be the reason.

So I try to stay still and silent, even when the sickness turns restless under my skin. Even when memories return in pieces piercing in the haze of my mind.

The bodies.Their eyes.The feel of shivers.The need to run.

***

I wake again sometime later. The light has changed. It spills in, golden from the window like honey across the floorboards. I feel clearer than I have in days.

Sterling is here. He sits beside me in the chair, quiet and unmoving. His presence is so constant, it barely feels like something separate from me anymore. He’s part of my world now. Part of the way I breathe. When I turn my head, his eyes are already on me.

Without the mask, his undeniable beauty is even more magnetic, drawing me in and inviting me to linger. There’s something about the way he watches me now that makes my chest ache, like he’s afraid to speak first. So I speak for us.

“Thank you,” I whisper, needing to say the words while my mind’s mine. “Thank you for helping me. I wouldn’t have known what Clo was doing if it weren’t for you.”

He doesn’t respond immediately. His expression doesn’t change much, but I can feel him listening. Then he leans forward and lifts a cup. “Drink,” he says.

He holds it near my mouth, and I obey because I trust him. Even now, with the ache in my skull and the fog still trailing through my mind, I trust him more than anyone. Something about him quiets the noise inside me. He doesn’t fill silence to make it easier. He lets it breathe. And I need that more than I realized.

I don’t know what that says about me. But I know what it says about him.

He didn’t have to save me. But he did.

He didn’t have to stay. But he did.

And I’ll be forever grateful.

***

A day or two pass before the first fever finally breaks. I know there will be more, but for now, my body begins to loosen its grip on the worst of it.

The ache in my bones fades enough for me to breathe again. The pressure behind my eyes eases, no longer blinding. The weight pressing down on my limbs begins to lift. Not all at once, but enough to feel like I’m slowly returning to myself, breath by breath.

And I know why.

Sterling.

It isn’t only the medicine or the tea, though they help. It isn’t the quiet way he encourages me to eat, guiding the spoon to my lips. It’shim. He’s never far. He’s always watching over me.