Page 11

S moke and charred cedar clawed down my throat. My muscles still screamed from yesterday's spiral, a ghost of pain threading beneath skin that never quite forgot. Something heavy pressed against my torso—a weight anchoring me to consciousness as morning light sliced through half-drawn blinds.

My fingertips found it through the blanket—smooth in places, worn rough in others. Not fabric. Something alive with history. I slipped my hand free, touching it directly. My skin caught on deep, uneven ridges where time had carved its signature. As sunlight shifted, leather gleamed beneath my touch.

A cut.

Not just any cut.

V's cut.

I bolted upright, the weathered vest pooling in my lap like spilled secrets. Sweat beaded cold across my palms, slick against scars that weren't mine. He'd been here—standing over me while I slept, just like he'd said he did.

I'd never seen a brother surrender his colors. Yet V had deliberately wrapped his second skin around me while darkness claimed me, and the weight of what that meant hollowed out my chest.

My stomach folded in on itself as memories of Hellbound's basement tore through my mind—industrial ovens that swallowed men whole, walls painted in screams that would never leave. The room shrank around me, edges blurring as my windpipe collapsed to a pinhole. Nails scraped desperate lines down my throat, searching for air that wouldn't come.

But then that acrid warmth from his badge hit me again—ash-heavy heat carrying whispers of gunpowder and cedar. The same scent that surrounded me during every spiral he'd walked me through, my brain somehow rewiring terror into safety, poison into medicine.

Breathe, Oakley. Just breathe.

"V?" The sound barely disturbed the air, his second skin still pressed against my chest. No answer came, just the hollow echo of my vulnerability bouncing off empty walls.

The living room held only shadows where he usually lurked, each corner a taunt of his absence. In the kitchen, a single thermos waited beside a coffee pod—a silent testament to what no one else saw. The corner of my mouth pulled up involuntarily. I used to only see the monster everyone whispered about, the shadow that made hardened men flinch. But last night had shown me something different—these small rituals, tiny acts of care I'd never expected from him.

I sank into the couch, fingertips tracing the stitched emblems of his world—each patch humming with memories I didn't own but somehow understood. Victoria shredding Darrell's cut with a knife flashed behind my eyes. A cut was sacred, something earned through blood and loyalty. I followed the edge of an embroidered skull, trying to decode what this sacrifice meant. Coming from V, someone who seemed to exist outside club traditions, the gesture felt... different. Possessive yet vulnerable.

Perhaps the scariest part wasn't that he'd given me his cut. It was how safe I felt beneath it.

Those same hands that crushed bones had steadied me last night with impossible gentleness. The contradiction made something crack inside my chest, hairline fractures in everything I thought I knew. V was everything I'd been taught to fear—the shadow that haunted our town's darkest corners, the name that made grown men go silent. Yet when panic had stripped away my defenses, he'd shown me something else entirely.

No one had ever handled my anxiety like he did. His blood dripping onto my foot—right after his fist shattered the mirror—still burned behind my eyelids. He'd caught the fractured version of me twisting in that broken glass—and tore it apart before it could finish consuming me. The way he'd stood there bleeding and unwavering, demanding I find something to like about myself while his blood pooled between us.

I was so lost in thought I didn't notice his arrival at first. The air shifted subtly—molecules rearranging themselves around something that consumed rather than existed. Then I felt it—his presence. Darkness seeped like ink under doorways, invading every crevice until there was nowhere left untouched.

I turned toward the entrance and froze. V stood in the doorway, his shadow stretching across the floor between us like a bridge I wasn't ready to cross. My throat clamped shut as he watched me with eyes that swallowed light, stripping away every defense I'd built. A sound caught in my windpipe, half-gasp and half-something else, as every nerve ending in my body ignited at once.

The cut slid from my grasp, hitting the floor with a finality that made my stomach drop. Panic surged as I lunged for it, nearly falling in my desperation to retrieve what wasn't mine to hold. My pulse hammered between my ears as I righted his colors, my hands shaking as I smoothed non-existent wrinkles from leather that had seen worse than my carelessness.

"I-I'm sorry. I-I didn't—" Words spilled out, voice thin as thread, as I wobbled on numb feet. My tongue swelled against my teeth, apologies sour in my mouth. "I-I didn't mean to drop it."

"Why were you looking at it like that?" The door clicked shut behind him with finality, the sound making my veins surge with ice water. Each step he took condensed the air, molecules pressing against my skin as my sternum refused to expand.

I hesitated. "Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why did you put your cut on me?"

"You said weight helped you sleep." His shoulders lifted in a shrug that didn't match the intensity in his eyes. "My cut is heavy."

I stared at him, throat working around words that wouldn't form. He'd actually remembered what I'd mentioned that night, filed it away like evidence. "Doesn't your cut mean anything to you?"

He stepped closer, and electricity crawled up my arms, raising hair along its path. "Means nothing unless you're the one wearing it."

Heat bloomed under my collarbone at his blunt response, spreading upward in a flush I couldn't control. V wasn't like the others—he followed his own code, his own savage version of right. No one could predict him. No one could control him. Everyone knew why: he existed outside morality, outside reason, outside everything but his own brutal clarity.

And yet here he stood, lending me his cut because I'd mentioned weighted blankets helped with anxiety—a passing comment I barely remembered making.

"T-Thank you," I whispered, the words barely audible over my thundering heart. "I slept better with it." Heat crawled up my neck at the admission. "I um..." His dark stare made my hands falter, nearly dropping it again as I thrust it toward him. "Here."

Sound disappeared behind the rush in my ears as blood pooled hot beneath my skin. My mouth betrayed me before I could stop it: "My room smells like you now."

"What do I smell like?" His tone spoke of faint curiosity that caught me off guard.

"Smoke." I swallowed hard, remembering all the whispers about why he always carried the scent of gunpowder and violence. "It's... comforting. Bittersweet like when I bake." The thought of my kitchen—my sanctuary—brought an involuntary smile to my lips.

"You like the way I smell?"

My skin tingled hot, eyes finding sudden interest in the floor as I gave a shaky nod. V loomed over me, each movement rippling tension through my spine. I held my breath as he drew closer, hands awkward and gaze uncertain.

He came to a stop inches from me. Slowly, deliberately, he lifted his hand toward my face. I fought the urge to step back as his palm drew near my forehead, close enough that my skin tingled with anticipation. The pause stretched, making me peek through one eye. His hand hovered—hesitant, wrong, waiting—inches from my face, tension etched in the rigid set of his shoulders.

"You stopped?" The words tumbled out before I could swallow them back.

V's hand remained suspended in the air, "I don't want you to hurt yourself again."

My ribs twitched like they wanted out, the sudden gentleness cracking open something I'd kept buried deep. V, who everyone feared, who kept the world at a distance—he'd actually listened to me. Really listened. My fingers twisted in my oversized shirt as my chest hammered against itself. This wasn't the V who stalked the streets like death incarnate. This was... something else. This wasn't the V everyone whispered about in fear. This was different, and it made my stomach twist in knots I couldn't name.

V held something out between us, the gesture awkward but careful. My fingers jumped, reaching for it—a soft blur of purple that slowly came into focus. "You got me oven mitts?"

I'd spent so long ducking my head and averting my gaze around him, muscles ready to flee at his approach. But something about this moment felt different. The corner of my mouth pulled up before I could stop it. In all the time I'd known V, all the times I'd cowered from his presence, I'd never once given him anything genuine. Until now.

V's fingers grabbed a handful of his shirt, white-knuckled and shaking. V never shook.

When I looked up, his eyes turned wild, frantic behind his mask as they fixed on my face with an intensity that made my lungs lock. Like he was trying to memorize this moment. Like my expression was something irreplaceable he needed to own.

My smile registered only when his stare transformed it into something sacred. Not from fear or obligation—but because of oven mitts. The raw confession in his voice made my rib cage constrict. As if he'd been starving for something I'd carelessly withheld.

The silence hung between us, broken only by the thunder in my chest. Something shifted in the air, in the way he stood there watching me, his scrutiny dense and suffocating, smothering like black smoke filling my lungs. And for the first time, the flutter in my torso carried an unfamiliar weight.

I must have lost my mind for a second. Something about the way he stood there, staring at me like I'd given him something precious, made it feel right. If this was a mistake, I'd pay for it later. But right now, it felt necessary. I let the mitts fall and crossed the space between us. I pressed into him, arms wrapping tight around his solid frame. "Thank you."

His warmth radiated into my bones, the seared bittersweet breath of him, wrapping around me like a memory I couldn't take off.

For one endless moment, he stood completely still, every muscle in his body tensed like he'd forgotten how to move. Then his calloused hand gripped my hair roughly, sliding down my spine that stole breath from my lungs. What started as gentle pressure turned savage as he crushed me against his chest, the force of it driving the air from my lungs in a broken whimper. But I didn't pull away. Even as his hold on me became cruel enough to make my ribs protest, I found myself melting into him, drowning in his ruin.

Safe. The realization should have horrified me—finding comfort in the arms of the club's most feared enforcer, even as his hands threatened to crack my ribs. Instead, it felt right in a way that should have terrified me. I tilted my face up, another whimper escaping as his hold turned possessive, desperate. His eyes void of mercy, as final and cold as a gravestone's inscription, locked onto mine before dropping to my parted lips, his grip becoming punishing at the sound I made. One of his hands slid up my spine to curl around the back of my neck, holding me in place as he stared down at me with an intensity that made me tremble. His fingers dug into my skin hard enough that I knew I'd find bruises later, evidence of how desperately he held onto this moment between us.

The front door crashed open. "Oakley, we brought?—"

One second. That's all it took for this moment to shatter. Mom's gasp sliced through the air as grocery bags hit the floor, contents spilling across the threshold. Time froze as my parents smiles withered and died, taking in the scene before them—their daughter wrapped in V's punishing embrace, his hands gripping me like he'd never let go.

Dad's eyes locked onto V's grip on my waist, the way I was pressed against his chest. "Get your fuckin' hands off my daughter before I break them."

The sound knocked me back inside myself as I stepped out of his arms. V remained motionless, his posture frozen, arms still outstretched where I'd been, and something dangerous crept into his stance as he stared down my father. His hand reached for me, pulling me subtly but definitively behind him.

Behind Dad, Mom's hand covered her mouth, disbelief etched into every line of her face. But beneath that maternal shock, I caught the almost imperceptible shift in her stance—how she edged sideways, blocking the exit. The air turned knife-edged as they stared each other down. Dad's hands curled into fists, V's fingers twitched at his sides, a muscle jumping dangerously in his jaw, veins prominent on his forearms. The hatred my father had always harbored for V filled the space between them. Their glares met like blades crossing, with me trapped in the sharpened air between them.

Dad's face darkened dangerously, the vein in his neck throbbing. His eyes locked onto the leather clutched in my hands. "Why are you holding his cut?"

"Calm down, Trevor." Mom's voice sliced through the tension, though her usual warmth had frozen solid. The look she leveled at V could have turned blood to ice.

"H-He-I-" My voice quavered as I grasped for words that wouldn't ignite this powder keg. "H-He was just coming by to check on me." The lie tasted bitter on my tongue.

"He was coming by to check on you." Dad's flat tone made me shrink back. "V? Thoughtful? Try again, sweetheart."

Dad only witnessed how I used to flinch when V's shadow darkened a doorway, how I'd duck my head and try to vanish. He missed what I was beginning to recognize—the precisely prepared coffee that materialized when anxiety gripped me, the way V remembered weighted pressure grounded me during spirals. My jaw clenched as I watched his eyes darken behind his surgical mask. These small considerations had always existed, concealed beneath the surface that terrified everyone else. But Dad saw only the predator who made his daughter shiver.

Maybe the mitts would make them see him differently. Make them understand.

I stepped back, gesturing frantically toward the lavender mitts on the couch. "He just bought me oven mitts."

"He did what?" Dad's jaw clenched, teeth grinding audibly.

"In lavender, too," I added, watching V from my peripheral vision. He remained unnaturally still, but his focus never wavered from me.

"Your favorite color," Mom observed, her tone careful, searching.

"It doesn't matter what color they are, Claudia. He doesn't get to buy your trust with fucking oven mitts." Rage dripped from every syllable Dad uttered.

I glanced at V, my heart racing as I waited for him to snap, to show my parents the violence I knew he was capable of.

"She smiled at me."

I turned to him. Whatever I witnessed shattered as his dark eyes went cold.

"And?" Dad's scoff filled the room.

V's gaze found mine. "She's never smiled at me before," he said quietly, eyes fixed intently on mine.

"Because you terrify her, asshole!" Dad's voice thundered through the small space. I flinched, but V stood like stone, his posture deceptively relaxed while tension coiled beneath the surface. His fingers twitched at his sides, control evident in every taut line of his body.

Dad's eyes narrowed to slits. "Her smiles should never be directed at you!"

The words were a direct attack on the confession V had just made about my smile affecting him so deeply.

My stomach twisted as tension crackled between them. I recognized the telltale set of Dad's shoulders—that hardened stance I'd only discovered was connected to the MC world eight months ago when I’d found out that he was part of a motorcycle club. V's subtle shift in posture mirrored it perfectly. Cold dread pooled in my stomach at the thought of what would happen if these two men decided to tear into each other in my small apartment.

"I-I don't mind him being here." The confession burst from my lips before I could stop it, surprising even myself. My ribs strained against each breath as I continued, "S-Since Nyla left, it's always too quiet here."

Mom shifted beside Dad, her sensible flats barely making a sound as she took a measured step forward. "We could've come over more, sweetheart." Mom's voice was gentle with concern, but her eyes cut to V with mixed emotions. "Or you could come over to our house more."

Mom's perfume mixed with lingering smoke from V's cut, the scent-heavy tension pressing against my skin. My mind flashed to moments ago, to those lethal hands moving with impossible tenderness down my back, to the way his heat had enveloped me. But beneath that memory lurked another—V carrying me over his shoulder to that basement, his grip unyielding as Dad fought against the brothers holding him back.

"I'll ask again. Why are you holding his cut?" Dad's question sliced through my thoughts.

My knuckles locked like the cut was the only thing tethering me. "He gave it to me to help me sleep." The words emerged barely above a whisper, my eyes fixed on Dad's polished shoes as they took an aggressive step forward.

Dad's face darkened, a muscle twitching in his jaw as his gaze bounced between me and V. "You think you can mark my daughter with club property?" His voice dropped dangerously low. "You're nothing but a fucking tool we use."

V remained perfectly still, but something shifted in his eyes—a darkness that made my breath catch. The same emptiness I'd seen that night in his basement when he'd led me down those creaking wooden stairs into his sanctuary of shadows.

"You don't deserve to breathe the same air as her," Dad spat. "You think giving her your cut gives you a claim?"

"My cut stays with her," V said.

"You don't fucking own her."

V didn't flinch. "She'll be mine until I stop breathing."

Acid climbed my throat—but my feet remained rooted.

"Then I'll bury you tonight." Dad lunged forward, murder in his eyes, but Mom's grip anchored him in place. "I won't just bury you. I'll erase you from existence—no cut, no name, nothing."

"Better men have tried." His eyes narrowed, already burying my father in his head. "And they all died believing they were the last."

"Dad, please," I begged, my voice barely audible through my panic. "S-Stop."

"Stop?" Dad's voice was sharp with disbelief. "Oakley, have you forgotten how he kidnapped you? How he dragged you to that basement against your will?"

The grain-stitched hide pressed against my collarbone as I lifted my chin. "I-I..."

I'd witnessed the crematoriums in his basement, the evidence of things I couldn't—wouldn't—name. I'd felt the terror of being dragged there against my will. Yet here I stood, clutching his cut like a lifeline.

"H-He's not?—"

The words died in my throat as my chest constricted painfully. My ribs tightened like iron bars around my heart, every breath dragging through shattered glass, a thousand tiny cuts slicing deeper. The room began to spin, edges blurring as my body betrayed me. V's cut slipped from my trembling fingers as darkness crept into my vision.

My vision blurred at the edges. Fingers tingled sharply. A rush of nausea slammed my stomach.

No, not now. Please not now.

My knees buckled. Thoughts scattered too fast to catch. Branches snapping under hurried footsteps, mud soaking into my knees, breath scraping raw. A laughter behind me—dark, feral. Real .

Before I could hit the floor, familiar calloused fingers steadied me—hands capable of such violence now preserving me. The same hands that had clutched me against his chest, that had brought me lavender mitts, which had earned him my first genuine smile. But also the same hands that had dragged me through Hellbound to his basement of horrors. The trace of scorched earth lingered on his vest as V brought me down with him, his touch careful despite Dad's angry protests.

"Breathe." V's mechanical voice cut through the roaring in my ears. "Like before."

I tried to focus on his voice and the steady pressure of his hand on my back, but the walls seemed to close around me. Mom's perfume crept in—too sweet, too close, the lingering smoke—it overwhelmed my senses.

"I-I can't—" Voice cracked, words strangling in my throat, "Can't—air?—"

"Oakley, baby, let me—" Mom moved closer, but V's low growl stopped her advance.

"Don't." His tone promised repercussions. "She needs space."

Through the fog of panic, he pressed his club colors into my hands. The familiar heft anchored me as he guided my breathing, just like last night. Every inhale scraped me back from the edge. The weight beneath my fingers gave me something tangible to focus on, each breath drawing me closer to stability.

When my vision cleared, I found V crouched before me, his dark eyes fixed on mine. Behind him, my parents stood frozen, horror and concern warring on their faces.

"Look at me." V's command pulled my focus back to him. "Only at me."

I nodded weakly, the weight of his colors digging into my hands like a lifeline as the room continued to spin at the edges. My chest seized, each breath a battle.

"You're having another panic attack?" Mom's voice wavered. "When did these start again?"

"Again?" V's question was directed at me, but Dad answered.

"She used to have them all the time after—" He cut himself off, and I squeezed my eyes shut against the memories threatening to surface. After that night in the woods. After the footsteps chased me through the darkness. After screams no one else would ever hear.

An invisible vise tightened around my ribcage, phantom sounds of splintering wood and cruel laughter echoing in my mind. Even now, years later, I could feel the cold earth against my palms, taste the metallic fear that never fully washed away. What happened that night lived under my skin, a shadow that only I could see.

"After what?" Lethal promise edged V's voice toneless, making my spine snap straight.

"D-Don't," I whispered, my voice raw. "Please."

His obsidian stare bore into me. His body tilted forward slightly, jaw rigid beneath his mask. His pupils had expanded until barely any iris remained, hungry for answers I wouldn't give. Yet he froze, letting me struggle through the worst of it. His solid presence anchored me, even as my world tilted off its axis.

"Baby girl," Mom moved closer, her voice softening with concern. "What do you need right now? Do you want to come back to our house with us?"

"N-No." The word emerged stronger than I expected. "I need—I need to be here."

"With him ?" Disgust dripped from Dad's words.

Another wave of dizziness struck, and I swayed forward. V's hand shot out, steadying me without contact. He remembered. He remembered I couldn't bear being touched during attacks—a detail no one else had ever bothered to notice.

"P-Please," I managed between shallow gasps. "Just go."

"We're not leaving you alone with?—"

"Get out." V's voice carried enough menace to make both my parents retreat a step. "Now."

"Like hell I'm leaving her with you!" Dad's voice boomed, making me curl deeper into myself. My hand found V's forearm, nails biting into his skin as another wave of panic crashed over me. Each inhale dragged slowly through clenched teeth.

"Trevor—" Mom started.

"No! Look at her, she's terrified and clinging to him like?—"

V's free hand hovered just above mine, close enough that I could feel its heat without the contact I couldn't bear. "Get the fuck out."

"I'm making it worse?" Dad's laugh bordered on hysteria. "That's rich coming from the club's attack dog. You think I don't see what you're doing? Using her anxiety to?—"

"Dad, please ," I begged, voice barely audible through my panic. Black spots danced across my vision as air scraped down my throat. V's skin burned hot under my fingers, my grip tightening until I must have been causing pain, but he remained immovable.

"Baby girl, you're hurting yourself—" Mom's perfume closed in, suffocating me.

"Don't fucking touch her." V's warning emerged as a feral growl. I pressed my forehead against his arm, trying to ground myself in the ember-dark scent of him.

"That's my daughter you're talking to—" Dad's aggressive step forward echoed through the floor.

"Keep talking. I'll end you, motherfucker."

"You threatening me?"

"Not a threat." V's voice embodied death itself. "A promise."

My vision tunneled as I practically crawled into V's side, seeking refuge. The weight of his colors pressed between us—stitched and silent, binding and a barricade all at once.

"Trevor," Mom's voice trembled. "We need to go. Look at her—we're making it worse."

"I'm not leaving her with him." Dad's voice dropped to that dangerous register I'd only heard at Hellbound. He took a step closer to V, every muscle coiled for violence. "This isn't over. Not by a long shot."

V didn't flinch, his eyes deadly calm as Dad continued.

"The moment she calls me—the second she needs help—I will burn your fucking world to the ground." Dad's hands shook with barely controlled rage. "You think you're untouchable because of what the club lets you do?"

"Trevor!" Mom grabbed his arm with both hands, forcibly pulling him toward the door. "Our daughter is having a panic attack! Your threats aren't helping her!"

Dad resisted, his eyes never leaving V.

"Now!" Mom's voice cracked with desperation as she practically dragged him to the door.

The door slammed behind them with a finality that echoed through my apartment. A framed photo crashed to the floor from the force, glass splintering across the hardwood—a perfect reflection of the fracture widening in my life. I tried pulling back, but my muscles resisted. "S-sorry?—"

"Don't." His free hand moved to cover mine, where it gripped his arm, keeping me anchored to him.

Minutes passed, marked only by my gradually steadying breaths. When I finally managed to loosen my death grip, angry red crescents marked his skin where my nails had been.

"I hurt you." Guilt crept in as I traced the marks with unsteady fingertips.

His eyes held mine, something unreadable flickering in their depths. "You never could."

My reflection stared back from the rain-streaked window—fractured and distorted by the raindrops that had begun to fall outside, a ghostly echo of the mirror he'd shattered to protect me from myself.

I jerked at his response, at the simplicity of it. My hand shook where it rested against his arm, adrenaline still coursing through my system. I'd seen the worst parts of him—had witnessed firsthand the violence he was capable of. Every instinct screamed at me to run, to put as much distance between us as possible.

I was certain he could feel it—every frantic beat under my skin. I should pull away. Should stop pressing my luck with a man who thought death was closure.

"Why can't I let go?" My voice cracked on the question.

He studied me with that predatory focus that made my skin crawl, like he was dissecting me piece by piece. His attention dropped to where my fingers still clutched his arm, knuckles white with tension. "Because terror and need can share the same heartbeat."

My chest locked, caught between salvation and damnation. My fingertips trembled, torn between lifeline and destruction.

The words sent shivers violently cascading down my spine. Weeks ago, he'd dragged me to his basement, shown me things no one should witness. Yet here I sat, clutching him like he was the only solid thing in a world constantly crumbling beneath me.

“You should be scared.” His tone didn’t change—but everything else did.

"I am," I whispered, my grasp on him tightening in defiance of my own words. The contradiction made the room tilt—desperate to flee from him while battling between wanting to run and needing to stay.

He remained a statue, offering neither solace nor withdrawal. The atmosphere suspended between us, thick with unspoken truths.

My breath caught painfully as his other hand shifted, my muscles tensing for... something. But he merely reached for the symbol no one else had touched that had fallen between us. The movement brought the scars across his knuckles into view—etched stories of every fight he never lost.

Scars traced ghostly reminders across his skin, whispered stories he'd never share. My unsteady touch traced one, following the dark lines that vanished beneath his shirt sleeve. His muscles tensed against my touch.

"Why do you let me in when I don't even know what I'm asking for?" The question slipped out.

He remained silent, his dark eyes watching my fingers trace patterns on his skin. He didn't answer. He didn't need to.

My nerves trembled where my skin met his, trapped between the instinct to withdraw and the need to press closer. The duality of him—my anchor during panic and the deadly enforcer who had once dragged me to his basement—left me clinging to contradictions I couldn't reconcile.

His only response was a slight tightening of his grip where his hand still covered mine.

I swallowed hard, forcing myself to pull back from his arm. The loss of contact left me unsteady, but I made myself create distance between us.

"I-I need to bake," I said quietly. "A-After... after attacks, I?—"

"I know." Of course he did. He'd probably memorized every pattern, just as he noticed everything else about me.

"W-Would you..." The words caught in my throat, fingers twisting in the hem of my shirt. "W-Would you stay?"

I nearly snatched back the words, regret already clawing up my throat. The weight of what I'd just asked—what it truly meant—crashed over me like concrete. He didn't speak. Just watched me, jaw locked. Then—so soft I almost missed it. "Yeah."

I suppressed words that terrified me more than he ever could. Words about finding sanctuary in his darkness that the light had never provided. This wasn't merely accepting him as my beacon during panic attacks. This was deliberately keeping him close when safety meant distance. This was willingly stepping into shadows where he dwelled, knowing light might forever remain beyond reach.

I could still retreat. Pretend this meant nothing. But the mitts were still where I'd left them. I wasn't holding them.

I was holding him.

His stare didn't move. Mine didn't either.

I used to dream about someone saving me from the darkness.

I just never thought I'd find him there.