Zach nods beside me.
“Same,” he says.
Christian studies us for a long second, then nods.
“I’d suggest you clean up,” he says quietly. “You don’t want her waking up and seeing you like this.”
My chest tightens at the words.
Waking up.
The possibility of it lands different now, sharper, more fragile.
Christian turns to Elijah.
“I’ll take care of the rest.”
Elijah doesn’t look at him.
“We’re not done,” he says. “Vargas is still out there.”
Christian’s face doesn’t change.
“We’ll deal with that,” he replies. “After she wakes up.”
A beat. Then Elijah nods, once.
We leave and for the first time since we carried her out, the silence between us feels heavier.
Deeper.
Like something irrevocable has been sealed in blood tonight.
thirty
Elijah
Lia’s apartment feels wrong without her in it.
Not empty, because nothing about this place has ever been empty, not with the way she fills it without trying, with the way her presence lingers in every corner, in the small things she leaves behind without thinking about them, the soft throw over the back of the couch, the books stacked unevenly on the table, the faint scent of her that still clings to the air like it refuses to leave even though she isn’t here to anchor it.
It’s all still here.
Everything that makes this place hers.
And she’s not.
I stand just inside the doorway longer than I should, the quiet pressing in around me in a way that feels heavier than it has any right to, because I know what she looked like hours ago, I know how close I came to losing her, and this, this stillness, this untouched version of her life, doesn’t align with that reality.
It shouldn’t exist like this.
It shouldn’t look like nothing has happened.
The shower has taken the blood from my skin, but it hasn’t taken the memory of it, and I can still feel it if I think about it too long, the heat of it, the way it soaked through everything, the way my hands wouldn’t stop slipping against her as I tried to keep her here.
And the way she went still anyway.
And the way nothing I did stopped that from happening.
