It’s not a question, but the low murmur of his voice hangs in the short space between us anyway. The truth is, I do not fear him at all despite the fact that I probably should. But I never have. There has always been something safe about the angel of darkness that overpowers any fear I might have had if our situation were different. The cloth rests against his cheek, my fingers curled around the edge of it while I study the face beneath the blood I’d spent the last several minutes quietly washing away. Up close, I can see the tiny scar tucked beneath the line of his jaw, the faint shadow where his beard has begun returning after shaving it the other day, and the exhaustion sitting heavily behind his eyes that have witnessed far more death than any one man ever should. It occurs to me then that no one has ever cleaned the blood from him before, if his reaction is anything to go by.
My finger brushes absentmindedly across the corner of his mouth where a final streak of crimson has dried against his skin, and the moment my touch leaves him, I miss it. The thought steals the air from my lungs.
“I’m not afraid of you.”
The confession slips free before I can swallow itback down, quiet enough that I almost convince myself they were only thoughts and I didn’t just say them aloud to the man covered in blood. His gaze searches mine with an intensity I feel everywhere, making the room around us disappear until there is nothing left but the space between us, shrinking with every passing heartbeat, neither of us moving yet somehow finding ourselves closer than we had been only moments before. I can feel the warmth radiating off him now, the clean scent of spice fighting against iron and melted ice, and somewhere beneath it all is the familiar comfort I have begun associating with peace. With happiness. With normalcy and everything else in between.
“You should be,” he says, though there is no conviction behind the words. They sound rehearsed, like I had heard him say them to me before. Perhaps he has.
But I don’t believe him.
I never have.
Because no matter what happens to me. No matter what he does to me. Nothing could come worse than the horrors I have already faced in this lifetime. Maybe when he takes me into the next, things will be different for me. Maybe he’ll come with me. Stay with me there. The place that only he knows. I want him to take me there. I want him to be the one to save me from this world. To rid my head of all thethoughts left behind by rot and cruelty. I don’t want to give those thoughts life anymore. I want to be who I need to be for him. For me. I want to be free.
Death makes me feel…free.
If this is truly the face of the man destined to carry my life from this world, then maybe dying was never the thing I was supposed to fear. Maybe I had spent four years surviving only to discover he was always going to be the one to meet me at the end of the line anyway.
He studies me for so long I begin to wonder if I’ve said something aloud without meaning to, his heavy eyes searching mine with such care and patience that has somehow become as familiar to me as breathing. Then, almost reluctantly, the corner of his mouth lifts into the smallest of smiles. His hand rises almost absently before stopping halfway between us, hesitating as though even he isn’t certain what it had intended to do. For one single second, it simply lingers there, suspended in the narrow space separating us, his bloodied inked hands curling slightly before he exhales a quiet breath and lets his hand fall again.
“You know,” he murmurs, his voice rougher now no doubt from the exhaustion lining his words, “you’re making it very difficult to remember why I keep telling myself to stay away from you.”
His words awaken something deep inside me, something I barely recognize but somehowunderstand all the same. No one has ever looked at me as though they were fighting themselves simply to remain where they stood. No one has ever chosen restraint over instinct. My gaze drifts slowly to his mouth before I can stop it, and his follows. The tension rippling between us tightens until it feels almost tangible, winding itself around every shallow breath, every hesitant second, every inch of space between our faces that suddenly seems impossibly vast and yet far too small.
Neither of us speaks. Neither of us dares. I can feel his warmth against my skin from where I stand, the steady rise and fall of his chest, the ghost of a breath brushing across my flesh with every quiet exhale. His eyes search mine as though he’s looking for permission he refuses to take without being given, while I stand rooted to the floor, unable to remember what it felt like to want something this desperately.
Not survival.
Safety.
My fingers, still curled loosely around the now bloodstained cloth, tremble almost imperceptibly as they linger against the line of his jaw, neither of us acknowledging that I should have stepped away several seconds ago. Instead, I find myself memorizing him. The golden hue of his eyes softened by the warm glow of the kitchen light. The tiredness etched into a face that had somehow become the one Isearched for every day that I had been away without ever admitting it to myself.
“Ghost,” he whispers. A prayer. A promise. A warning. Wrapping itself around the name I’ve come to love with such tenderness that something inside me gives away, the final thread tethering me to every reason I had for keeping my distance drifting silently to the floor between us. For so long I had believed Death would one day steal my final breath, I still do, yet standing here, I realize he has been doing something far more dangerous all along. He has been giving them back to me, one careful breath of life at a time.
Before fear has the chance to remind me who we are, who he’s supposed to be, the frightened girl buried somewhere inside me can retreat behind the walls she’d spent years building, I rise onto the very tips of my toes, close the last fragile inches separating us, and press my mouth softly against his. Because I choose to. They stole my name, my freedom, and years I’ll never get back, but they never earned this.
This choice belongs to me.
And that is my power.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
RAVEN
There are moments in a man’s life that divide everything into before and after. I had always imagined mine would arrive at the end of a blade, beneath the weight of another body, or with the deafening crack of a gunshot echoing through some forgotten warehouse while another name was carved into the ledger I carry inside my head. Instead, it has arrived wrapped in the smallest, whimsical woman I had ever known. She fits against me as though the space between us had spent years waiting to disappear, her hand still resting against my face so effortless it has unsettled something I had mistaken for permanence. I had become accustomed to blood. To the smell of it drying beneath my fingernails. To the quiet acceptance that every room I entered would one day become another memory I wished I could bury.
Violence had never asked before making itself at home inside me. It had simply arrived on my doorstep, settled beneath my skin and refused to leave. Yet, standing here, with her lips pressed softly against mine, our breaths slowly surrendering to one another,I discover that even the darkest parts of a man can be brought to their knees and so completely undone by a woman far more than violence ever could. I can’t survive her. Survive the feel of her lips on mine. Every instinct I’ve ever turned into a weapon deserts me with breathtaking ease, leaving behind nothing but a man afraid to move for fear this moment will dissolve the second I do.
I’ve imagined this. The thought crashes into me with unfamiliar force, colliding headlong with the reality of her soft lips against mine until every stolen fantasy I’d buried over the last week fractures beneath the weight of this single moment. This isn’t softer than I’d imagined. It’s deeper. More consuming. More fucking devastating. I lose myself so completely in the quiet certainty of her choosing me that I forget every promise I’ve ever made to myself. Even if this is all she ever gives me. Even if, when this kiss ends, she remembers who I am. The things she’s seen. The things she assumes I’ve done, and assumes correctly, and decides to run.
I can’t let her run.
Not from me.
Not now. Not tomorrow.
Especially when she’s supposed to be dead.
