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He reaches for the notebook in his back pocket.

I talk faster before he can make this gentler than it is. “I don’t need you to tell me it wasn’t my fault. I need it to not happen again.”

His hand stills.

All right. Keep going before you lose your nerve.

“My body remembers things wrong,” I say, voice quieter now. “Or maybe it remembers them exactly right. I don’t know. But when something gets too close, when I can smell it and feel it and there’s no distance between me and teeth, I’m back there.”

Leon’s expression doesn’t change, but his fingers tighten around the notebook.

“Me on the ground.” My hand drifts toward my thigh before I force it still. “I know I’ve killed up close before. I know that. But the closer we get to Chicago, the more I keep waiting for the part where I hit the pavement and can’t get back up.”

The words leave me shaking.

Leon steps closer, one hand raised like he wants to comfort me.

I flinch.

He stops instantly.

He exhales through his nose and takes one deliberate step back.

Not rejection.

Restraint.

The space between us turns cold anyway.

I hate that I understand why he stepped back.

I hate that I wanted him not to.

“Train me,” I say.

His attention snaps back to me.

“Not like Lyla does.” I force myself to hold his stare. “She’s good. Better than good. She’s been trying with me for two weeks, and I can do the steps when they’re slow. I can plant my feet. I can hold a knife. I can repeat what she tells me until it sounds like I know what I’m doing.”

My laugh comes out thin.

“But the second it feels real, I freeze. Every time. If something gets too close, if hands grab me, if there’s weight or breath or teeth right there, my body goes back to the street. To Russ. To the gun. To not being able to move.”

His attention drops, just once, to the scar hidden beneath my jeans.

“I need hands-on. Real. Someone bigger than me. Someone strong enough to scare my body into learning the difference between danger and training.” The words scrape on the way out. “And I need it to be someone who will stop the second I need him to.”

His jaw tightens.

“I need you to teach me,” I add, quieter now. “Because I get nervous around men, and I . . .” I force the rest out before I can swallow it. “I trust you.”

Leon goes very still.

You also make me nervous in other ways.

But I don’t say that.

“Please. I need to be ready. I’m scared of Chicago.”