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“I should’ve listened.” The words spill out before I can shove them back down. “I should’ve just fucking stayed here like you told me to.”

My breath catches.

Then again.

And suddenly I’m not tending to him anymore. I’m just kneeling there between his knees with steam filling the bathroom and blood on my hands, finally feeling the full weight of how stupid tonight was.

How close it came.

How easily he could’ve been dead because I wanted five minutes of freedom.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper, and then the tears come harder. “I’m so fucking sorry. I was mad, and bored, and I needed to numb everything. I just wanted it all to be quiet, but then everything went bad so fast, and Mina got grabbed, and you got shot, and I—”

My voice breaks completely.

Dagger leans forward immediately, his good hand sliding to the back of my neck, pulling me into him even though he’s the one bleeding.

“Hey.”

I shake my head against him.

“No, I fucked up.”

“Yeah,” he murmurs, rough and quiet. “You did.”

The honesty hurts.

But his hand stays on me.

His mouth presses into my damp hair.

“And you’re still here,” he says. “So am I.”

That only makes me cry harder.

Dagger doesn’t tell me to stop.

He doesn’t try to make it pretty or manageable or less embarrassing. He just holds me there with one hand at the back of my neck, his mouth pressed into my damp hair while steam thickens around us and blood keeps drying on both of our skin.

Eventually, my breathing starts to even out.

Not fixed.

Not okay.

Just quieter.

Dagger pulls back first, his thumb brushing beneath one of my eyes with a gentleness that feels almost obscene after everything we just survived.

“Come here,” he murmurs.

His fingers find the hem of my tiny ruined top. He moves slowly, giving me every chance to stop him, every chance to step back, but I don’t. I just lift my arms when he guides them upward, letting him peel the damp fabric from my body with careful hands.

The outfit sticks to me in places from sweat and rain and whatever the hell else the rave left on my skin.

Dagger doesn’t rush.

He doesn’t make some cocky comment.