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He disappears into the kitchen, and I don’t move, but I hear water running, the soft sound of cabinets opening and closing. When he returns, he carries a glass of water, which he sets on my nightstand within easy reach.

“Drink,” he says. “And try to eat. The whiskey’s not going to do you any favors tomorrow.”

I push myself up to sitting, my head swimming with the sudden movement. “Did you⁠—”

“It’s done.” The simple statement carries a weight I can’t begin to quantify. “No one’s going to come looking for him. No one’s going to connect him to you.”

The knot in my chest loosens. “Thank you.”

He shakes his head. “Don’t thank me for that. Just…stay in bed. I need to finish up here. We can talk when I’m done.”

I curl deeper into the bedding, clinging to the stuffed fox, as Orien moves through the apartment. He doesn’t hover over me, doesn’t ask if I’m okay, doesn’t fill the silence with platitudes or reassurances. He cleans, and the mess disappears piece by piece.

The high whine of the vacuum cuts through the room. Through half-lidded eyes, I follow Orien’s progress as he runs it along the baseboards, checking the corners and beneath furniture for any glass I might have tracked across the floor. He moves with the practiced ease of someone who’s done this before, many times.

Satisfied he’s collected every shard of glass, Orien moves to the toppled bookshelf. He rights it, wipes down every surface, and begins collecting the scattered novels, checking each one for damage before returning it to its place.

My bookshelf is alphabetical by author and chronological by publication date. It’s the only system that makes sense to me, the only way I can find what I’m looking for when I need it. But Orien doesn’t know that. He puts them back in whatever order occurs to him, and I don’t have the energy to correct him.

Besides, it doesn’t matter. Nothing about my apartment’s organization matters.

He works through the kitchen, wiping down every surface with a solution that leaves my sinuses burning from across the room. Bleach cuts through the lingering copper tang of blood, overwhelming it until it becomes a memory, a ghost of violence erased by chemical clean.

Satisfied with the kitchen, Orien carries a bag to the door. “Ten minutes, and I’ll be done.”

I don’t answer. I can’t.

He leaves again, and the apartment settles into quiet once more. Outside my window, the sky darkens into night, and the streetlights flicker on one by one, their glow spreading across my ceiling.

I should turn on a lamp. I should peel myself off the mattress, change the sheets, wash away the evidence of my breakdown, do anything besides lie and wait for Orien to come back.

But exhaustion pins me to the mattress, my muscles leaden from the adrenaline crash, and the thought of leaving the relative safety of my bed sends a spike of panic through me.

So, I stay where I am, the fox held tight in my arms, and wait.

Orien returns twice more, ferrying supplies and trash between my apartment and the hallway. The third time, he strides to the sheet of glass leaning against the wall, lifts it, and positions it over my drawer system. He places my fallen laptop in the center and sets the lamp on the corner with a brand-new shade just like the original. Reaching beneath it, he clicks on the light, and warm yellow fills the apartment.

It’s indistinguishable from the original. As if it were never broken at all.

He moves to the bathroom next, and I hear the water run again, the soft sound of more cleaning. When he emerges with a towel, he wipes down the doorframes, the light switches, the furniture, and anywhere else the Alpha might have touched in his attack.

It’s so complete I can almost believe it never happened.

Almost.

The last bag goes out with Orien’s final trip downstairs, and when he returns, he locks the door behind him, turns the deadbolt, and hangs my keys on the hook by the door. He must have found them out in the hall where he found my fox. I never even questioned it until now, which proves that everything, in fact, is not okay.

He crosses to the bed and sits close enough for his body heat to seep through the blanket, but not so close as to crowd me. “How are you doing?”

The question hangs between us, too simple and too complicated all at once.

“I don’t know,” I answer. “I can’t…I keep seeing it. Hearing it. Feeling it.”

“That’s normal,” he says, as if he expected nothing less. “It will fade.”

“Will it?” I don’t mean to sound desperate, but the words come out ragged, anyway.

“Yes.” No hesitation, no uncertainty. Just a flat, simple fact. “It will.”