Chapter Fourteen

I didn't turn the lights on that evening.

I sat on the small couch in the guest house with my knees pulled up to my chest, still in the same clothes from that morning on the terrace, and I watched the room go from gray to blue to black without moving to stop it.

There was something almost peaceful about sitting in the dark,nbody could see my face there and nbody could ask me to explain it.

I heard the car before I saw the headlights sweep across the wall, and my whole body tensed, bracing for Nathaniel, for another conversation I didn't have the energy to survive.

But the knock that followed was different,it was softer and familiar in a way that loosened something in my chest before I'd even opened the door.

Marcus stood there in the porch light, his arm still in the sling, the bruise along his jaw fading to a dull yellow-green instead of the deep purple it had been at the hospital.

He didn't say hello,he just looked at me, at the dark room behind me, at whatever was written on my face that I hadn't managed to hide in time.

"You weren't answering your phone," he said.

"I didn't hear it."

"I called four times."

"I know,I saw them after."

He didn't ask if he could come in. He just stepped past me, careful with his bad arm against the doorframe, and reached for the lamp on the side table before stopping himself.

"Can I turn this on?"

"No," I said. "Not yet."

He nodded like that made perfect sense, like sitting in the dark was a reasonable thing to want, and lowered himself onto the couch beside me instead, slow because of his ribs, a small wince crossing his face that he tried to hide and didn't quite manage.

For a long time, neither of us said anything.

I could hear him breathing beside me, steady, unhurried, and somewhere outside a dog barked twice and went quiet,the main house was lit up in the distance, gold light spilling from the kitchen window, and I made myself not look at it.

"Bad day," Marcus finally said. Not a question.

"She left a note on my pillow."

"What kind of note?"

"Telling me to know my place." My voice came out flatter than I expected, worn down instead of angry. "I brought it to them. Both of them. I thought if I just showed them the handwriting, if I just laid it out plainly enough, someone would finally believe me."

"And?"

"She cried." I pulled my knees tighter against my chest. "She cried, and he put his hand on her shoulder, and somehow by the end of it I was the one apologizing for bringing it up."

Marcus didn't say anything right away,he just reached over with his good hand and found mine in the dark, not gripping it, not pulling it toward him, just resting there, warm and steady, the way he had at the hospital.

"I'm so tired, Marcus."

"I know."

"Not sleepy tired,the other kind. The kind where you start wondering if it's even worth saying anything out loud anymore, because no one's going to believe you regardless."

"I believe you."

"I know you do,but you're not the one who gets to decide what happens in that house."

He was quiet for a moment, his thumb moving slightly against the back of my hand, and when he spoke again his voice had dropped lower, careful. "You don't have to convince anyone in that house of anything, Elena. Not anymore. You don't owe them your evidence or your explanations."

"Then what do I owe them?"

"Nothing," he said. "That's the whole point."

I let my head fall sideways until it rested against his shoulder, careful of his bruised side, and he didn't tense or pull away, just let me stay there, his breathing slow and even beneath my ear.

"Can you just stay?" I asked. "You don't have to say anything else,I just don't want to be alone in this house tonight."

"I'm not going anywhere."

We sat like that for a long time, longer than either of us probably needed to admit out loud, the dark settling comfortably around us instead of pressing in the way it had before he arrived.

He didn't ask me to talk more than I wanted to,he didn't fill the silence just to fill it. He just stayed, solid and quiet beside me, and something about that steadiness made the ache in my chest ease, just slightly, just enough that I could breathe without it catching halfway.

At some point I must have dozed, because I woke to find the room still dark, my head still on his shoulder, his good arm now resting lightly across my back like he'd shifted at some point to keep me from sliding sideways in my sleep.

"You should go home," I murmured, still half asleep. "It's late. Your ribs."

"I'm fine."

"Marcus."

"I said I'm fine, Elena." His voice was soft, but there was something firm underneath it. "I'm not leaving you sitting alone in the dark tonight,not after everything."

I didn't argue again,I let myself lean back into him, grateful in a way I didn't have the words for yet, and for a while longer the guest house stayed quiet and dark and safe, the two of us the only people in it who mattered.

Across the yard, in the main house, a light was still burning in the study window.

Nathaniel stood there with a glass in his hand, untouched, staring out at the darkened driveway where a car he recognized immediately was parked, tucked close to the guest house like it belonged there.

Marcus's car.

He'd seen it the moment he walked into the study to pour himself a drink he didn't actually want, and he'd been standing at that window ever since, watching the guest house lights stay off, watching the shape of the car sitting there in the dark like a quiet accusation.

He told himself it didn't matter,he told himself Elena could have whoever she wanted over now, that he'd told her himself to stay away from the main house, that this was exactly the kind of distance he'd asked for.

But his hand tightened around the glass anyway, and he didn't move from the window, not for a long time, watching that car and waiting, with a feeling curling low in his chest that he didn't want to name.