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Wade hurt the only person left that he loves.

The only person he’d sell his soul to protect.

She never stopped looking for him and in return he strangled her in a rage, unable to trust his own eyes. Now, he can’t trust the rest of himself either.

He could have killed her, and that’s enough to have him coming apart at the seams where he sits on the bed, shoved into the corner.

Hopes she won’t touch him again but nearly vibrates with the need to feel her hands smoothing over his shattered body, while at the same time being disgusted by the idea of anyone getting close enough… even her.

His emotions form a tangled web, pulling him in opposite directions.

It wasn’t only once that he lost control, but twice. Nearly knocked her teeth out for the sin of trying to comfort him. He can’t be sure it won’t happen again while they’re alone without anyone to pry him off her.

The fact that she’s real, not some delusion, isn’t something he can fully handle either, or give the weight it deserves. What kind of bullshit is that after spending every waking moment dreaming of nothing but the day he’d see her again?

How wrong he was to think it could be as simple as he imagined. There are no movie endings here when he can’t even look at her for more reasons than he can count.

She’s moved back to the chair as the sun starts to set while he slowly melts down into the mattress. Where will she sleep tonight, he wonders, assuming she’ll leave again, and he’ll be alone in this box with his own thoughts.

‘ Stay w ith me.’ He thinks, as if she’d want anything to do with him now.

That can’t happen. He’d never ask. Isn’t even sure he wants it as much as he thinks he does. The concept of her slipping into bed with him is both innocently seductive and far too dangerous. Then she shifts in the chair like she might sleep there and guilt pummels him.

He’s used to sleeping on the floor. This one is an upgrade with carpet instead of concrete. He owes her a soft mattress at the very least for everything he’s put her through.

“You can sleep here.” He hates how raspy he sounds, even worse than when he smoked a pack a day before the turn.

He’s halfway off the bed before her protest comes, but she doesn’t leave the chair. She’s afraid of him. Good. Maybe that’ll keep her alive.

She points to the side of the bed like before, silently asking if she can come closer to talk to him.

He hesitates, heat prickling up his neck when he’s forced to meet her eyes, before eventually nodding his agreement. He was never a master of eye contact, even before all this. Grew up looking at everyone sideways to avoid a direct connection. Now, that flaw has only flourished.

She takes up the corner a few feet away. “I want you to sleep in the bed. Really. If you sleep on the floor, I might start crying again, and we’ve both done enough of that for one night.”

He made her cry. He knows that already, but now he’s imagining it all over again. “Shouldn’t have to sleep in the chair.”

“It’s comfortable. Fluffy.”

He sighs. “Please, just let me do this for you.”

“How about we compromise? There’s another mattress in the spare room. It’s a twin. I can drag it in here. Is that okay? Then we both get a bed.”

‘ Just sleep here with me.’ He longs to say. ‘ Curl up close like you used to in my head so I can fall asleep to the sound of your heartbeat.’

“Okay.” Is what he says instead, rewarded by a soft smile before she leaves to fetch her sleeping arrangements.

Two minutes feels like twenty until she’s back again, settling the mattress close enough he can hear her. It would be a decent plan if he weren’t so conflicted that he’s driving himself even more insane than he already is.

The last rays of evening light stream in, caressing her hair like a halo as she occupies her new bed, facing him but very pointedly not staring.

He has nightmares most nights. Always did, but they’ve gotten worse now, more violent and often ending in bruises after thrashing against the cell wall. What if he hurts her in his sleep? What if he forgets she’s real and assumes her a hallucination again?

“You have to take me back to the last place,” he blurts out, instantly regretting it when hurt flashes across her face.

“Why? I don’t understand.”

“It’s not safe for you to be alone with me.”

“I’m not afraid of you.”

“You should be. I hurt you once, and I’ll do it again.”

Kara’s frown sets in deeper. “You stopped yourself. You could have hurt me, but you didn’t.”

That’s not the kind of logic he can entertain when he’s too busy trying to shove her away for her own good. He would give her up all over again if it meant keeping her safe, but should have known she’d fight him on it. “If something happens—”

“It won’t. What happened here was my fault. I pushed you. It was my mistake, not yours, and I won’t make it again.”

That sounds too much like what she might have said to their foster father all those years ago, claiming responsibility for his behavior when it was never her fault.

Wade is no better than every shit human they’ve come across.

Maybe even worse, since simply touching him is a mistake that almost cost her a busted lip.

If he can’t handle this from the only person he trusts, then what are they even doing here?

He’s quiet for a long moment, unsure of how to make her see that she’s sleeping in a cage with someone crazed, and his hair-trigger is still as sensitive as ever.

“Where do you want to be?” she asks, so sweetly that he can’t help but answer with the truth.

“Here. With you.”

“Then be with me.”

“You’re so fucking stubborn,” he sighs, almost fondly.

“So I’ve been told.” She plays with an old hair tie around her wrist that he recognizes from so many years ago. It was the only item she had to her name before she was shuffled into the system as an orphan. She kept it all this time. Used to tell him it had to have some luck left in it.

“It’s not a good idea.”

“Give me two weeks,” she says quickly, as if he’s about to make an unstoppable u-turn. “If you still want to go back to Paradise Falls by then, if you still think it’s not safe, then we’ll go.”

“Anything could happen in two weeks.” He could hurt her, kill her, or fail to leave this bed the entire time.

“If you can’t trust yourself, then trust me to know what’s safe and what’s not.”

“Keep your knife on you the whole time?”

Her brow creases, lips forming another frown that tells him everything he needs to know about how willing she’d be to use it. “Okay.”

“Okay.”

The relief on her face is worth the temporary resolution, even if he still has his doubts.

She slides the knife under her pillow, and that gives him a small glimmer of hope that she could fend him off if it came to that. “Get some rest. We can make eggs for breakfast tomorrow if you want. They left us a dozen.”

Eggs for breakfast.

Breakfast.

Like it’s a normal thing that happens when nothing normal has happened in forever.

Her misplaced faith in him is on full display when she falls asleep in under an hour, but it takes him far longer until exhaustion finally wins.

He can’t stop staring at her. It’s probably creepy, but the only time it’s safe to look is when her eyes are closed and he doesn’t waste the chance.

Kara is a painting even more beautiful than anything he could create in his own mind. He takes in every detail from the slope of her nose, to the way her hands curl up under her chin while she sleeps, and how those pink lips he’s dreamed of every night part the slightest bit.

He didn’t dream last night. Fatigue kept his nightmares away, so he’ll sacrifice the dreams if he must.

Wade even loves how she snorts herself awake the next morning, wrinkling her nose before granting him a smile that cracks into a yawn. The moment he’s spotted watching her, he looks away as if caught in the middle of a horrible crime.

“I’ll start on breakfast. There’s a bathroom down the hall. You can come find me in the kitchen when you’re ready or I’ll bring the food in here. Either is okay.”

When he’s ready. Will he ever be?

He has a horrible case of separation anxiety the moment she’s out of sight, and yet he’s anchored to the bed. Has to piss like a racehorse but he isn’t allowed to leave his cell.

No, no, he’s not there anymore. He’s in the blue house with Kara.

He runs his hands over the sheets, light and soft under his palms. He never had sheets in the cell.

Touches the petals of the small flower still waiting in its cup. No one brought him flowers before.

He inhales the musty scent of a house left to sit for who knows how long. His space always smelled metallic, either from his own blood or someone else’s as it seeped down the hall or under the door.

It’s really her. He can leave the room if he wants to, even if it feels like a monumental task.

Biology forces him forward. She’s already had to clean up his vomit once.

He’s not about to take that to another level.

There’s an odd sort of tremble that zings from his feet to the back of his neck as he rises from the bed.

It’s a warning bell that only sounds when he’s doing something forbidden and it takes every effort not to stop halfway across the room and rush back.

You’re a grown man, for fuck’s sake. Just find the bathroom and quit your quivering, is what he tells himself.

One step, then two. He peeks around the door as if Silas is waiting to drag him back where he belongs, then bolts to his goal. He takes the quickest piss of his life before getting stuck staring at his reflection in the mirror on his way out.

The man looking back has him frozen solid. His hair is a mess, and his body is a disheveled road map spelling out what’s been done to him. Every pothole and crack in the pavement is etched into his skin from his shoulders down to the waistband of the sweatpants he wears.

What is she doing here with him? Locked in this house for who knows how long, away from anyone she might be missing, and for what?