She turns toward the door. A deliberate, unhurried exit.
As she passes me, close enough that I catch her warmth against the cold, the realization arrives like a round in a plate carrier: she followed not because she had to. She chose to.
I file it away.
It’s information.
Dangerous information.
And I make myself a promise I’m sure I won’t be able to keep.
She stops at the door. She doesn’t go in. She turns back, placing her hand on the frame.
“Who lived here before me?”
The question catches me off guard. It’s a breach I didn’t see coming.
“What?”
“The house. It feels empty. Sterile. But there’s a stain on the rug in the living room. Under the side table. Iron oxide. Blood. Old, but someone tried to scrub it out with bleach.”
She tilts her head, her gaze boring into mine.
“Did they die? The person you were keeping ‘safe’ before me.”
I stare at her. She misses nothing. Hyper-observant. It’s a survival trait, but right now, it’s dangerous. It peels back layers I carefully constructed.
I should lie. I should tell her it was a nosebleed. I should tell her it was wine.
“He didn’t listen.”
The truth sounds sharp and cold. It tastes like ash.
“He opened the door. He made a call. Thought the rules didn’t apply to him. Thought his money insulated him from ballistics.”
“And?”
“And I couldn’t get to him in time.”
The memory replays. The breach. The sound of the suppressed shots. The silence after. The mess on the rug the cleaning crew missed.
She absorbs this. She doesn’t look horrified. She looks resigned. She nods, a small, jerky movement.
“So, when I give an order… I expect you to follow it as if your life depends on it. Because it does.”
“So you’re the warden of this prison.” She lowers her voice to a whisper. “And if I follow the rules, I live.”
“That’s the truth of it.”
“And what if I don’t want to live in a cage? What if I don’t follow your rules?”
Heat. Sudden, blinding, blistering heat. I’m instantly hard, aroused and aching, because she’s feeding a fantasy she doesn’t know I carry.
“Don’t test me, Iris. You won’t like what happens next.” I step up onto the porch and close the distance, breaching her operational space. Pushing the issue, forcing a response.
Close enough now that the cold can’t survive between us. Her warmth bleeds into the narrow space we share, a dry fever of proximity I have no clinical name for. It wraps around me, a siren song calling me to crash against the rocks.
She tilts her head back just enough to keep eye contact, lips parted like she’s already bracing for impact.
