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I backed toward the door.

Then stopped.

Because of course I stopped. My pulse went stupid.

I should have run or opened the door and just left. I should have called Sam, Mandi, the Guard. Done something sensible. I should have marched to the trash and dumped the rose right on top of the morning’s coffee grounds and a receipt for discount ramen.

But against my better judgment, I closed the door, let my eyes slide shut for a second, then calmly filled the vase with fresh water.

Then I stood there staring at it, because, apparently, my survival instincts had clocked out and left a round-bodied raccoon in charge.

The rose did not ask for money, labor, or a smile. It did not need me to make a drink, cover a shift, stay late, be useful, be easy, be anything.

It had been left for me.

That made it worse.

That made it better.

I loathed myself a little for knowing the difference.

My phone buzzed.

Kalon: Door locked?

I swallowed and looked at the rose.

Liv: Locked.

Kalon: Good. Sleep.

I stared at the screen until it dimmed.

Sleep.

Right.

When normal people found evidence that someone had entered their apartment, they didn’t follow that up with a bath and a romance novel.

I locked the door again, checked the windows, grabbed my book, and ran a bath hot enough to purge every bad decision I had made since birth.

Steam filled the bathroom. I sank into the water until it lapped at my collarbones and opened my book with damp fingers.

Safe chaos.

That was what books gave me. The monster wanted the girl, but the pages knew the rules. He could stalk, threaten, growl, bleed, ruin himself, and kill half a kingdom, but the story held him by the throat until he learned devotion instead of danger.

I forced myself back into the general’s world. He found the heroine in chapter thirty-one. He kicked open the wrong door first, killed the wrong man second, and responded to her covered in blood with the emotional range of furniture. By chapter thirty-three, he finally told her he loved her while bleeding out in her lap.

“Took you long enough,” I muttered.

By the last-page kiss, the water had cooled and my fingers had wrinkled. I closed the book against my stomach and stared at the ceiling.

The apartment stayed quiet.

I got out, wrapped myself in a towel, and padded into the living room. The rose waited on the table, red, silent.

I gave it a wide berth and grabbed my laptop.