He stares at me. His chest is rising and falling too fast, and I can see the pulse in his throat, the tremor in his hands.
"Monika," he whispers. "Can I—"
He doesn't finish the question. He doesn't have to.
I kiss him.
Or maybe he kisses me. It's hard to tell. The space between us closes like a wound healing, like a door shutting, like something that was always going to happen finally happening. His lips are soft—softer than I expected—and they taste like wine and snow and something else. Something that might be hope.
He's shaking. His hands come up to my face, cupping my cheeks, and I feel the tremors running through his fingers like electricity. He's not practiced. He's not smooth. He's just a boy who's been watching me for weeks, who's been building up to this moment in his head, who's terrified and desperate and so achingly tender that I want to cry.
I kiss him back because he's safe. Because he's sweet. Because I haven't been touched in months—not really, not like this—and the loneliness has been eating me alive from the inside.
But also because I want to. Because when I look at Gabriel, I see someone who might understand. Someone who might see the girl I used to be, before the city and the warehouse and the cages. Someone who might help me find her again.
He pulls back just far enough to look at my face. His eyes are wide, almost frightened, and his lips are pink from the cold.
"I've been watching you," he whispers. "I know that sounds terrible. I don't mean it terribly."
"I know."
"I just—I couldn't stop. You were so... you. And I've never met anyone like you. Someone who isn't afraid of my father. Someone who looks at me like I'm not already ruined."
"Gabriel." I put my hand on his chest, over his heart. It's beating fast—so fast, like a bird trapped in a cage. "You're not ruined. You're just... in progress."
He laughs. It's a broken sound, wet and raw, and I realize he's crying. The tears are freezing on his cheeks, tiny crystals in the light from the house, and I wipe them away with my thumb.
"I don't deserve you," he says.
"Nobody deserves anything. You just earn it."
The snow falls around us, thick and white, covering the frozen garden in a blanket of silence. We stand there for a long time, holding each other, not talking. His arms wrap around mywaist, and I rest my head on his chest, and I listen to his heart slow from a gallop to something steadier.
In the distance, I hear the door of the mansion open. Aleksander's voice, calling Gabriel's name.
We don't move.
"Tomorrow," Gabriel says. "Come to the diner. I'll be there."
"You're always there."
"This time I'll tell you the truth. Everything. About my father, about the family, about the things I've seen." He pulls back and looks at me, and his eyes are red-rimmed but steady. "You deserve to know what you're getting into."
"I already know what I'm getting into."
"No." He shakes his head. "You don't. Not yet."
He kisses me again—quick, soft, a promise—and then he's walking back toward the house, his footsteps crunching in the snow, his figure growing smaller and smaller until he disappears through the hedge.
I stand in the garden alone, the snow covering my hair, my shoulders, the blue dress that's too thin for November. My lips are numb. My fingers are cold. But somewhere in my chest, something is warm.
Something that feels like the beginning of an end.
Or the end of a beginning.
I walk back to the house. Viktor is waiting by the car, holding the door open, his face as blank as ever. I slide into the back seat and close my eyes, and I think about Gabriel's hands on my face, his lips on mine, the way he saidI've been watching youlike it was a confession and a prayer all at once.
He's been watching me.
