Page 271 of Black Reign

“I couldn't type it.”

“I know.”

“You stayed anyway.”

“You asked me not to leave.”

“I did?”

“You wrote, ‘Just stay.’”

My eyes burn.

I remember.

Not the exact words.

The feeling.

Sitting on the floor of Papa’s empty apartment in France with a laptop balanced against my knees because getting into bed meant accepting he would never come home.

Ghost's green indicator stayed lit all night.

No questions.

No speeches.

Just:

Still here.

I swallow.

“You kept writing that.”

Xavier’s thumb brushes my cheek.

“Because you kept checking.”

I close my eyes.

There.

That's why this hurts.

Not Blackwell.

Not the kidnapping.

Not even Papa.

Because the man I thought existed only in that impossible private space has been real all along.

And now I know how his hand feels against my face.

I lean into it before I can stop myself.

His breathing changes.