I look up at him from between his thighs, voice low and final. “Sleep first.”
He scowls and I kiss the inside of his thigh, right over the faint bite mark I left earlier. “You’ll get whatever you want tomorrow.”
His scowl flickers, cracks, and finally gives way to a quiet, wrecked little smile. “Promise?”
I nod once. “I always keep my promises.”
23
JULIAN
I’m floating. Not twitching on the floor or puking in a bucket or clawing at my own skin. Just… floating. Like my bones got replaced with smoke sometime between the moment Rafe kissed me against the shower wall and the moment he dropped a severed finger into my lap wrapped in a goddamn gift bow.
It’s the next morning. Maybe. I think. The light looks different. The air smells less like sex and steam and more like dust and sweat and quiet. The sheets are warm. My thighs are sore. My jaw clicks when I yawn. Everything feels… slow. Like my body’s moving through water. Like gravity isn’t in a rush to make me feel anything yet.
I stare at the metal wall across from the bed, blinking lazy and dazed and too loose to sit up. My brain’s not firing at full speed. There’s no come-down nausea. No withdrawal rattling my ribs. Just this dull, blissed-out hum in my chest like someone rewired my nervous system with cigarette smoke and aftershocks.
I should feel something, right? I should feel fucked up. Or guilty. Or scared. Or something. But all I can do is lay here and think about the fact that I didn’t even flinch when I realized Rafe killed Nathan.
He handed me a box with a finger in it—Nathan’s finger—and I didn’t cry. I didn’t scream. I didn’t throw up or dissociate or melt into a puddle of unresolved trauma.
I just said ew. Called him a bastard. Told him he was deranged. And then I laughed. And then he laughed. And then I fell asleep on his chest while he kissed my hair like he hadn’t just erased the biggest ghost in my bloodstream. I think that’s what’s really gettingto me. Not that Nathan’s dead. Not that I’m not sad. But that I’m so fucking fine about it.
I don’t miss him. Not even a little. The ache that used to sit behind my ribs—the one that lit up when I touched myself, or watched the tape, or heard his name on a broadcast—that ache is gone. Like Rafe carved it out with a knife and threw it in a trash can with the rest of Nathan’s parts.
And I should probably feel bad about that. But I don’t.
I feel…clean.
Like I’m still sore and dirty and fucked in the head, but that one infected piece of me finally rotted out and fell off. I feel new. Almost high.
Maybe it’s the withdrawal. Maybe it’s trauma. Maybe I’ve officially snapped. But as I lay here wrapped in one of Rafe’s shirts, legs bruised and back aching and thighs still sticky from last night, I can’t stop smiling.
It takes me three tries to stand without faceplanting. My thighs feel like I got hit by a truck and then dragged behind it for emotional support. I stumble to the edge of the bed, blinking blearily around the container as if the walls might have shifted overnight.
I drag a hand through my still-damp hair and shuffle toward the door like a newly hatched deer on unsteady legs. The second I step outside, the sun hits me like a slap—bright, merciless. I squint, groan, wobble on my feet.
And there’s Kai. Leaning against the railing like a smug fucking statue, arms crossed, black shirt unwrinkled, radiating surgical coldness as if it’s too early for anyone to breathe his air.
I blink at him until my eyes adjust. “So, uh… I think I’m over my ex.”
“Yeah,” Kai says flatly, not even blinking. “We heard.”
I frown. “You heard?”
His lips twitch—just barely. “Thin walls.”
My jaw drops and the bastard grins.
“Oh my fucking god.” I snatch a half-empty water bottle off the rail and chuck it at his head. He dodges like a cat, the smug never leaving his face. “You’re a monster.”
“You’re loud.”
“He’s loud!”
Kai doesn’t even dignify that. He just turns and starts walking, tossing a glance over his shoulder like I should already be following. “Come on. He’s waiting for you.”
I freeze, blinking up at him. “Wait—who?”
