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I’m about to ram my shoulder against the door when it opens and she appears at the threshold.
All small and broken. All sad and fucking petite.
She’s wearing a bathrobe, her face makeup-free, which makes her look younger, and her half-damp hair falls over her covered round breasts.
And my necklace.
She’s still wearing the necklace I gave her for her birthday. When I saw it back on the plane, I nearly lost it. For some reason, I thought she’d try to erase every memory of me, but maybe that’s not the case.
I expect rage at worst and annoyance at best, but when her bright blue-gray eyes meet mine, there’s nothing there. They’re aimless, dim, and absolutely muted.
They look creepily similar to my eyes when I first escaped that hellhole as a kid.
Back then, I didn’t look in the mirror for months, because the reflection I saw in there was no different than a monster and it rattled the fuck out of me.
“Shouldn’t you try to not hurt your shoulder…?” Her dispassionate words trail off when her vision zeroes in on the souvenir she gave me.
Her lips part, trembling as she studies the gash on my chest. It’s a red, ugly hole that Mum and my nan suggested I get plastic surgery for.
A suggestion I promptly dismissed.
I’m glad I did, if not for anything else, then for the whirlwind of emotions that dance in Annika’s eyes.
She’s no longer numb, dull, and lifeless now that her feelings pour out in a splash of colors.
Her shaking hand reaches out for the wound, but I grab her wrist, stopping her halfway.
“Who gave you permission to touch me?”
She jerks, lips pushing and falling in anOas she trembles. “I…”
“You’re what? Trying to finish what you started by actually killing me this time?”
“I never wanted to kill you. If I did, you’d be dead already. I told you I don’t miss, but I tried to, even when I wasn’t thinking straight.” A sob tears out of her throat. “I only wanted to stop you.”
Using my hold on her wrist, I push her back, my chest rising and falling in harsh breaths.
Annika stumbles backward and winces, her face scrunching as she lifts her foot off the ground.
I pause, and all the anger I’d planned to unleash on her dissipates into a much more prominent feeling.
The need to protect her.
The fuck is wrong with me? She shot me and all I want is to remove anything that hurts her. All I want is to keep her safe from the world.
But not from myself.
I inspect her foot that she’s resting on her calf. “What is it?”
“N-nothing.”
“Annika, don’t fuck with me. What’s wrong?”
She stares up at me with those round eyes, so big and tormented. “I think I cut my foot earlier, but it’s not a big deal—”
Her words end in a yelp when I carry her bridal style to the bed. The moment I drop her on the mattress, she stands up again.
“I-I’m really fine.”
