Ch. 58

The attic was clouded with dust and shadow and the lazy, transient clarity that only comes after bloodshed; Carolina’s breath still ragged from the market job, the razor taste of adrenaline not quite gone. She found Xander as she’d left him, half-sprawled on the creaking futon that doubled as their bed, eyes closed, the line of his jaw in full battle with stubble and the afternoon light.

She shut the door with her heel, turned the lock—habit, but also something like desire clicking into place. He looked up at the sound, unlacing his hands from behind his head, and in the silence she read the invitation even before he crooked his finger.

She crossed the room in four strides, the old floorboards shouting every step, and before she was done pulling her shirt over her head, he had her pinned at the hips, hands at her waist with proprietary roughness, mouth already at her neck. His teeth grazed the necklace of bruises she’d collected, and she shivered, both of them grinning at the new ones to come.

The urgency was mutual, barely civilized: her jeans undone with one hand, his belt ripped open in a single motion—no ceremony, no pause, just need. They didn’t have the luxury of slow. She crawled up his body, feeling the heat of his hands mapping bruises and old scar-tissue, the way he pulled her hard against him. Their laughter, sharp and animal, not quite hiding how much they actually gave a damn.

She straddled his torso and let him taste the sweat at her collarbone, tongue following the long, red scratch blooming there. Everywhere they touched hurt and healed in the same moment. He rolled her under, and the mattress screamed for mercy, and she bit his shoulder, not gentle. The room was hot, suffocating, alive with their history and the pulse that never slowed.

They went like that—wordless, savage, sharing air and bite-marks, trading who took lead. At some point he pressed her wrists above her head and kissed her like they were still on the run, desperate and starved, and she arched into him, dared him to mark every inch she’d bared.

After, they lay tangled and panting, the attic window fogged and the world outside gone to static. She traced the cut above his left eye, knowing it would heal ugly.

He smiled, unrepentant. “Guess you’ll have to love me anyway.”

She didn’t answer, not out loud—just pulled him down and kissed his new bruise, hard enough to promise a thousand tomorrows.

*

Afterwards, she slipped down to the kitchen. Morgan was there, making tea from dried leaves that looked like weeds, Wyn hunched over a heap of scavenged electronics. Outside, the moon bled orange through the clouds; inside, the attic carpet was still warm with the memory of their bodies.

Carolina rinsed blood from her hands and told herself she was only doing it because the stains would show, not because she was shaking. She drank her mug standing up, eyes always on the door, fighting the lull of safety.

Tomorrow, hell would happen again—probably before breakfast. But tonight, the house was whole. Tonight, the stories she told the younger ones about things getting better didn’t feel like a lie.

She returned to the attic to find Xander asleep, one arm draped over the dip in the mattress where she’d been. She nestled into the crook of his shoulder, already drifting, already dreaming of the fights and reunions to come.

She slept, for once, like she wouldn’t have to wake up running.