Chapter 4: If You Let Go, I Fall

I don’t think. I move.  

The IV stand is the only weapon I have. I yank it free and slam the base into the doorframe, jamming it shut. 

The metal screams. Julian’s men hit it from the other side, once, twice. 

The door holds. For now.  

Roman is on his knees, breathing hard. Too pale. Too weak. 

But he’s between me and the door anyway, like his body remembers how to protect me even when his mind doesn’t remember why.  

“You can’t run,” Julian says through the wood. His voice is calm. That’s worse. 

“There’s no nurse. No security. I own this facility, Ms. Monroe. I own the staff.”  

The DNR. The fake nurse. The syringe from before. 

He’s been planning this since Roman woke up.  

Roman grabs my wrist. His fingers are cold, but his grip is sure. 

“Window,” he rasps. 

Third floor. We’ll break our necks.  

“Fire escape,” he says, reading my face. “North side. When I was a kid.”  

He remembers the layout of a house he hasn’t lived in for ten years. But not me. Not really.  

I haul him up. His arm goes over my shoulders. 

His weight hits me all at once. Solid. Warm. Real. 

In high school he used his body to shove me into walls. Now I’m the only thing keeping him upright, and my stupid heart doesn’t know what to do with that.  

“Sorry,” he mutters against my hair. “Didn’t mean to be heavy.”  

“You’re not,” I lie.  

He is. But I like it.  

We make it to the window. The fire escape is rusted, but it’s there. 

The door behind us splinters. Julian’s men are coming through.  

I don’t ask if he can climb. I just go first, then reach up. “Come to me.”  

Roman looks at my outstretched hand. Something flickers in his eyes. 

Trust. Or desperation. Maybe they’re the same thing right now. 

He takes it.  

His palm slides against mine, sweaty and scraped. I pull. 

He bites back a sound of pain and tumbles onto the platform with me. 

For a second we’re pressed chest to chest, his heart hammering against mine, both of us shaking.  

“Isla,” he breathes. Not my wife. Not a girl. Isla.  

The name in his mouth undoes me more than the men with the guns.  

We don’t talk as we climb down. Can’t. 

He’s concentrating on not passing out. I’m concentrating on not dropping him. 

By the time our feet hit the gravel, sirens wail in the distance.  

Singh. She must have followed Julian.  

Julian and his men disappear before the first cruiser pulls through the gate. 

Of course they do. Men like him don’t get caught. They get delayed.  

Singh can’t protect us, but she can arrest me.  

“You removed a patient from a licensed facility,” Singh says an hour later, at the police station. 

Roman is in the ER again, checked in under an alias Singh arranged. 

“You interfered with a DNR order. You assaulted private security.” 

“I saved his life,” I say. My hands are flat on the metal table. Not shaking. Not anymore. “Again.”  

Singh studies me. “You have the flash drive, don’t you?”  

My dad’s face flashes behind my eyes. Kade’s testing weapons on civilians, Isla. If anything happens to me...  

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say.  

Roman’s voice comes from the doorway. “She does.”  

He’s in a wheelchair, hospital gown, blanket over his legs. But his eyes are sharp for the first time since the crash. 

He looks at Singh. “My uncle tried to kill me tonight. Isla stopped him. If you arrest her, you’re helping him.”  

Singh exhales. “I can’t book him without evidence. And I can’t put you two in a safe house without cause.”  

“There is a cause,” Roman says.  

He wheels himself closer. Every push costs him. But he doesn’t stop until he’s beside me. 

Then he takes my hand on the table. Laces his fingers through mine. Deliberate. A claim. 

“She’s my wife,” he tells Singh. “And someone tried to kill my wife tonight.”  

The word wife hits like a defibrillator. 

Not because it’s true legally. Because he says it like it means something. Like I’m not a liability. I’m his.  

Singh looks at our joined hands. 

“The court ordered him to the Kade estate for recovery. Julian appointed the nursing staff. The only way you stay with him, Monroe, is if you live there too. As his spouse.”  

My stomach drops. Live with him. At the estate. 

Where his father hurt him. Where Julian can reach us.  

“It’s that or I take you in for kidnapping,” Singh says quietly. “And Julian gets him back.”  

I react the only way I know how: I choose Roman.  

“Fine,” I say. “I’ll go.”  

Roman’s thumb sweeps across my knuckles. Thank you. A promise.  

The Kade estate is huge. Cold. Empty. 

The PT room is in the west wing, all windows and mirrors. 

Julian’s nurse is gone. Singh vetted a new one. She leaves us alone for sessions because Roman “performs better” when it’s me.  

Liar. He performs better because he’s staring at me and not the floor.  

“Again,” I say.  

He’s on the parallel bars, legs shaking. Sweat runs down his temple, cutting through the bruises. 

I’m spotting him, one hand hovering at his back, not touching. Yet.  

“I can’t,” he grits out.  

“You can. One more step.”  

He tries. His knee buckles. I catch him.  

His hands land on my waist. Mine fist in his shirt. 

We’re chest to chest, breathing hard. His heart is a drum against my ribs.  

“Got you,” I whisper.

His eyes drop to my mouth. For a second, I think he’ll do it. 

Kiss me. For real. Not the chapped, confused brush from the hospital.  

He doesn’t. He rests his forehead against mine instead. Broken. Honest.  

“Why do you keep catching me?” he asks. “After everything.”  

After I ruined your life. He doesn’t say it. He doesn’t remember. But I do.  

“Because no one else will,” I say. 

“That’s not an answer,” he says.  

It’s the only one I have.  

We stay like that too long. Until his breathing evens out. 

Until my hands learn the shape of his sides. Until I realize I want to keep holding him up.  

“Isla,” he says.  

“Yeah?”  

“I remembered something. In the car. Before the crash.”  

My pulse kicks. “What?”  

“You.” His voice is raw. “You were at the light. 5th and Cedar. I saw your car. I was going to turn around. I was going to find you. Because I...”  

He stops. Swallows.  

“I was going to tell you I was sorry,” he finishes. “For high school. For all of it.”  

The air leaves my lungs. 

He was coming for me. Before the brakes were cut. Before the amnesia.  

He’d chosen to apologize before he lost his memory. He was already changing.  

“I didn’t know,” I say.  

“I know.” His hands tighten on my waist. “But I want to now. If you’ll let me.”  

That night, I can’t sleep. The estate is too quiet. 

I check the security feeds from my laptop. Julian’s access was revoked, but I don’t trust it.  

2:14 a.m. Camera 6. Roman’s room.  

The door opens.  

Not Julian. Not the nurse.  

A girl. Young. Seventeen. Blonde. Crestview High uniform.  

She walks to Roman’s bed. Stands over him. She’s crying.  

Roman stirs but doesn’t wake.  

The girl leans down. Presses something into his hand. Whispers. 

The feed has no audio.  

Then she looks right at the camera. Right at me.  

And mouths two words. He’s mine.  

The feed cuts to static.