Semua Bab I Will Find You: Bab 31 - Bab 40

RobbieI woke to the sound of bones breaking like old wood and the taste of pennies in my mouth.It wasn’t real. It never is when the room holds still afterward and the ceiling stain above the mattress looks like Ohio and not a snarl. I stared at the stain and counted heartbeats. One, two, three—until the drum in my throat quit trying to escape and became only breath again.The room over the laundromat had two things going for it: cheap rent and a rattling window unit that could drown out most of the shakes if I turned it to Arctic. I swung my legs over the side of the bed and did the ritual. Knees. Floor. Hands on the ugly carpet. Head down until the world got big enough to stand up in.I didn’t pray. I made deals.Day 42. The number I’d scratched into the back of an old bus transfer. Forty-two days since the last time I let anything but coffee set my hands on fire. Forty-two days since I saw a man tear out of his skin like he was tired of being smaller than what was underneath.I to

HollandThe truck’s engine ticked in that cooling way machines do when they’ve done everything asked of them and would like to rest now. Remy walked me from the parking garage to the elevator, his palm warm at the small of my back but not directing, a touch like a comma that let me finish my own sentence. George’s desk lamp downstairs had been left on for us; the lobby cat was a loaf in the window, pretending to be asleep and absolutely clocking our arrival.Inside, I clicked on the small lamp by the kitchenette and the room turned itself down to a softer version of reality. My heels were already off—thank the flats he’d thought to bring—so I started to the counter, set my little black clutch beside the fruit bowl, and slid the strap of my wrap from my shoulder. The black dress whispered as it settled. I looked briefly like the kind of woman who knew what to do with a night, and then remembered I’d never been that woman before now. The fact that I’d faked it well made me a little gidd

HollandThe bond climbed another notch. It asked me a question I’d been hearing in the background for days. I answered it with motion. I swung a knee across his lap and straddled him, slow, so he could stop me if he wanted to. He didn’t. His hands found my waist like magnets find north and then slid to the small of my back, anchor and invitation both.I kissed him.He kissed me back like he’d learned my mouth while I slept. It was slow and then not, careful and then honest. His arms banded—gentle but unarguable—and the line of our bodies matched in that way that makes a woman want to throw furniture out the window because how dare gravity and destiny conspire that neatly. I could hardly breathe and didn’t want to. Heat picked up everywhere, tugging at me, smoothing me, lightning living under my skin.My oversized t-shirt tugged against me in a way that made me very aware of everything I wasn’t wearing under it. He broke the kiss to breathe and his gaze dipped, caught on the evidence o

RemyHolland came to the door on light footsteps like the floor had laid itself down just to catch her. She wore jeans and a soft top, hair pulled back, face bare and better than anything paint could pretend at. The bond woke without jarring, more like someone turned up a lamp.“You wanted to see me?” she asked, curiosity first, not anxiety. Progress.“If you’re up for it,” I said, leading her out toward the elevator.Once we got back to the packhouse, I took her to my personal office and I took a seat at my desk, pointing her toward the chair so the distance was human and the moment wasn’t a summit. “Two things. One, how are you?”“Still good,” she said. “Nightmare came, then left. Coffee helped. You helped.” A smile tugged at one corner of her mouth; I hoarded it. “Two?”“Training,” I said, and watched her shoulders—not her eyes—for the truth. “Only if you want it. Private. With Todd. We’d start simple. Awareness, exits, how to get someone off you, how to break a wrist hold without

RobbieDay 89. I keep numbers the way some men keep saints. Coffee. Run. Work. Meeting. Sleep like it’s a trick you learn with repetition. Every morning I write the count on a sticky note and slap it to the mirror: proof that I can make one thing hold still.And still, the map in my head won’t stop drawing itself toward teeth.Cearen showed up again the way fog does—present before you notice, impossible to argue with once you do. He leaned against the brick under my window, hands in his pockets, eyes with that not-quite-human way of taking in a scene like it’s a chessboard.“You asked for stupid,” he said by way of hello. “You kept trying anyway. Come on.”He didn’t say where. He never does. We went down to where the river bends under the old trestle, where the concrete columns wear graffiti and long stories. The cottonwoods fussed in the wind. Moonlight was the kind of cheap silver that makes you think about stealing.She was waiting there—barefoot on the spill of smooth stones like