Page 57 of Drowning in Darkness

She makes a sleepy sound that could generously be described as acknowledgement.

“This is my bed.”

“I know.”

The answer comes so easily, it catches me off guard. “You do?”

“Mmhm.”

I should wake her. No, that’s wrong. You aren’t meant to wake sleepwalkers. I’ll give her an hour, then move her. I don’t want her to feel mortified in the morning or to spend the rest of my life pretending this never happened because preserving her dignity matters infinitely more than my own discomfort.

She burrows a little deeper into the pillow, the sleeve of my shirt hanging over her hand as she tucks it beneath her cheek. “You smell safe,” she whispers.

Everything inside me stills. I’ve spent most of my adult life making sure people looked at me and saw exactly what they should. Dangerous. Capable. Evil incarnate. A man who could be relied upon to do things decent people wouldn’t dare.

“Safe” was never part of my equation.

Yet here she is, with every defense stripped away by sleep, choosing that word without even knowing she’d spoken it.

The temptation to wake her disappears. Not because I want her in my bed. That would be the worst possible decision either of us could make. But because for the first time since she arrived, she’s sleeping and lacks that frown that suggests she’s preparing to run.

I don’t have it in me to take that away. Not tonight. I glance at the open door and back at the head of dark curls sprawled across my pillow. I should sleep in her bed, or maybe on the sofa . But sleep won’t come tonight. Not with her words turning over and over in my mind. Every time I close my eyes, I hear them all over again.

You smell safe.

The irony isn’t lost on me.

She’s asleep in my bed because she wandered into the wrong room, and I’m standing here wondering when exactly I stopped seeing her as a problem and started worrying about things that have no business being inside my head.

She would never see me as safe if she knew a fraction of the things I’ve done. She doesn’t know the decisions I’ve made or the lines I’ve crossed. If she did, she wouldn’t borrow my shirts or call me safe. She’d be sleeping with one eye open.

I pull the covers a fraction higher over her shoulder before stepping back. She curls a little tighter around the pillow, and something about the sight settles the argument I’d been having with myself.

Waking her would be for my benefit. Letting her sleep is for hers. The decision makes itself.

I slip from the room, returning a minute later with my laptop tucked beneath one arm and a spare pillow under the other. The shopping website is still open from earlier, and before I can close the window, my eyes snag on the basket.

Thirty-one bottles of nail polish.

I stare at the number. What on earth is she doing with thirty-one bottles of nail polish? Sixteen was the tip of the iceberg. The corner of my mouth threatens to betray me.

Thirty-one.

I counted twice in case I’d accidentally developed an inability to distinguish between nail polish and shampoo or whatever the hell a coconut hair mask is. I cannot be held responsible if she walks around with a hollowed coconut on her head.

The reason nail polish matters to her is lost on me, but excitement filled her face when she hovered over those colors earlier, as though she wasn’t choosing cosmetics at all but reclaiming pieces of herself she’d lost.

With a shake of my head, I dismiss the warning suggesting I reduce the quantity before completing the order. If she wants thirty-one bottles, she’ll have thirty-one bottles. It’s a strange hill to die on. Stranger still that I’m willing to defend it.

The browser disappears as I open a secure search on Stephanie King.

Within a few seconds, the results populate, and a rogue thought occurs to me that I’m crossing a line she hasn’t given me permission to cross. Then I remember the conversation in the kitchen, the fear stitched through every sentence she’d spoken without realizing she was speaking at all, and I tell myself this isn’t curiosity. No, it’s due diligence for a woman who needs protecting from both her past and her future.

If I’m going to keep her alive, I need to understand what tried to break her in the first place. The articles aren’t in circulation, having been quashed under piles of legal tape and the deep pockets of parents with everything to lose. But nothing is truly deleted in this age. As the saying goes—in the online world, once it’s uploaded, its footprint is there forever.

I have to dig deep, but I come up with a dozen articles telling the same carefully sanitized story. A promising university student. Six accused men. An ongoing investigation. A traumatized victim.

Victim. The word feels inadequate after watching her stand in my kitchen convinced safety is a fairy tale adults invented to help children sleep.