Page 137 of The Silent War

We’d done this since we were five. Proof we weren’t dying alone. It was survival then.

Now it was ritual.

His jaw clenched. For a second, I thought he’d slipped too far. Thought I’d lost him back to the dark. Then his fingers moved against mine. Weak. Shaking. But there. Just like the cages.

Something cracked in me too. Hours cut off from him felt like the darkness all over again. His pulse under my hand proof I wasn’t walking this world without him.

“One pulls us back,” I told him, “Always. That’s the rule. That’s the only way we made it this far.”

His grip tightened. Eyes clearing, inch by inch.

“If you break, I break. If you bleed, I bleed. That’s not poetry. That’s fucking fact.”

My breathing too sharp until I forced it steady with his. “I can live with blood on my hands. I can’t live with yours. So don’t you fucking dare leave me here.”

He dropped into me. My hand locked in his. My pulse against his chest, steady. Mine for him. His for me.

“One pulls us back,” I whispered again, this time like a vow. “Always.”

His shoulders eased.

He stayed there, curled into me like the world couldn’t touch him. And for a moment, it didn’t. Because I wouldn’t let it.

Every crack in him lived in me too. Because we weren’t two people. We never had been. We were one soul split down the middle. He hurt, I bled. I broke, he shattered. If he went down tonight, I’d follow.

I got him to the bed. Barely. His body was all weight. The side of his shirt was soaked through. Blood everywhere.

My hands moved fast, ripping back fabric, cataloguing damage. Gashes. Split knuckles. A slice at his ribs, clotting, not deep enough to cause this amount of blood. Shoulder out of place. Wrists bruised.

Which meant this blood wasn’t his.

I swallowed hard, forced my hands steady.

He didn’t talk. His body was here, but his head was somewhere colder. Somewhere darker.

“Where do we have to go?” I asked, pressing a towel to his side.

No response, his eyes unfocused and hollow.

Back in the cage.

“Luca.” My voice dropped, steady. I had to be the restraint tonight. “Where do we have to clean?”

Nothing. His chest rose shallow, like he didn’t think he deserved air.

I grabbed his hand, laced our fingers. Pressed my other palm flat over his chest, firm. Forced him to feel again.

“Look at me. You’re not in there. You’re here. With me. So answer.”

His jaw clenched. “My car.”

“Where else?”

“The service lot behind the Gilded Cage.” His voice empty, in a way that scared me. “And… one of the emergency flats above Palace Noir.”

Fuck.

I locked it down. No reaction or judgment. Just squeezed his hand tighter.