Chapter 6 The Present
After Cassian carries me inside, I lose consciousness within minutes. It’s not gradual. Just a sudden, silent plunge into blackness, as if someone hit a switch and the world blinked out.
When I wake again, everything feels still. The kind of still that makes you second-guess whether you're awake at all.
But then the ache in my body returns, dull and distant, like I’ve been lying still too long. My mouth is dry. My limbs are stiff. Blinking slowly, I lift my gaze and try to make sense of my surroundings.
Hours must have passed.
I’m no longer in Nathaniel’s room where Cassian put me and told me to rest. I’m lying on a hospital bed, but not in one of the guys’ rooms. This space is different. Wider. More open. I turn my head, taking it all in.
It’s the common room. The overhead lights are off, leaving most of the space steeped in shadow, the corners softened into murk. Only a soft, silver glow filters in from the kitchenette. It casts long, low beams across the floor.
My bed is positioned in the center of the room, with two others flanking it—one to the left, one to the right. On those beds, Cassian and Nathaniel are asleep, both angled slightly toward mine, like their bodies turned that way instinctively.
Cassian’s face is slack, unreadable. Nathaniel’s, though—
His brows are pinched tight, his lips pressed into a tense line, even in sleep. He looks like he’s still fighting something in a dream he can’t wake from. I hesitate, caught in the urge to reach over and smooth the worry from his brow. But my hand doesn’t move.
That’s when I notice it. The light. Something about it feels off.
It’s moving. Not flickering, but swaying, back and forth. My first instinct is to panic. Some kind of scanning device? A drone? Have the police found us? My heart jumps before I can fully reason my way through it.
But no. It’s nothing mechanical. It’s a flashlight.
Held in a steady hand.
I follow the path of the beam, letting it guide my eyes to the source.
Talon.
He’s seated in a metal chair positioned at the edge where the common area meets the kitchenette. He sits with his legs spread, one hand gripping a thick, battered book, the other holding the flashlight. It sways gently in time with the rhythm of his reading. Back and forth, like a metronome.
Beside him, there’s a stack of books—worn, mismatched, some barely held together by their spines. They lean toward him like they’re seconds away from collapsing. A chipped mug rests on the table nearby, steam still curling from it in thin wisps.
Coffee. I can smell it from here.
I shift slightly in bed to see him better. My muscles protest, stiff and uncooperative. Still, I manage to sit up, careful not to make a sound.
He looks exactly the same as he did a couple hours ago.
He’s clearly showered and changed clothes, but you wouldn’t know it.
He’s still dressed head-to-toe in black, collar to boots, with at least three knives strapped to him.
I spot one at his hip, another at his thigh, and a smaller one near his shoulder.
There are probably more hidden beneath the folds of his gear.
His hair is tousled, messy in a way that says sleep wasn’t part of whatever plan he’s running. His eyes are narrowed, fixed on the page like the rest of the world doesn’t exist.
And for a while, I just watch.
Because damn, he’s beautiful. An infuriatingly attractive bastard, even though I hate his guts half the time.
In the flashlight’s beam, his burnt-orange hair looks almost copper.
There’s a glint to it that makes him seem otherworldly.
Like a flame that refuses to burn out. His lashes cast sharp shadows on his cheekbones, and the hard line of his jaw tenses now and then, like he’s silently reacting to whatever he’s reading.
“Like to watch in the dark, do we, Little Grim?” he says suddenly, voice low enough that the other two don’t so much as twitch. Slowly, almost lazily, Talon lifts his gaze from the book and turns his head toward me.
My breath hitches. Busted.
“I wasn’t watching,” I lie, voice scratchy and thin. “Just… woke up.”
Talon hums, clearly unconvinced, but amused. “Right. Woke up and just happened to be staring at me like a little creep.”
I don’t dignify that with a response. Mostly because he’s not wrong. And also because my throat’s too dry to risk another sentence.
“Not that I’m judging,” he adds. “I’ve been staring at your ass every time I took a break from my little study mission.”
“Are you calling yourself a creep?” I whisper.
“When it comes to you?” He smiles. Tired, but disarmingly so. “Fuck yes.”
He closes the book with a soft thump and sets it aside. The flashlight stays in his grip, but he tilts it downward, casting shadows across the floor. It makes his expression harder to read, all shadows and suggestion.
“Go back to sleep, Little Grim,” he murmurs. “I’m on watch tonight. No wraith’s getting close enough to touch you. I’ll stop her before she even gets the chance.”
Ah. That explains all the gear. He’s ready for a fight, if it comes to that. Still, I narrow my eyes.
“I thought regular weapons didn’t work on her?” I raise a brow. But instead of heading back to bed like a sensible person, I slide my legs off the mattress and pad barefoot across the cold floor.
“They don’t,” he replies. “That’s why I’ve got this baby.”
He nods toward the small curved dagger next to his books. The one Pain made.
“What about the rest of it?” I stop a few feet away, arms loosely crossed. I gesture to his black clothes, his boots, the various weapons strapped across his body.
“We’re not just being hunted by the wraith anymore, are we?” he says. “There are other players now. I’m prepared for all of them.”
I glance at the others. Only now do I realize Cassian and Nathaniel are dressed the same: black gear, combat boots, weapons. Ready. Even in their sleep.
“I see,” I mutter. “Still, I doubt you’re faster than a murder ghost that moves like a car.”
I turn back to him, only to find he’s already on his feet.
Fast.
Before I can take a full breath, he’s behind me. One gloved hand wraps around my waist; the other gently tilts my head to the side. His mouth hovers just above my ear.
“I’m faster than you think,” Talon murmurs, voice a scrape of heat against my skin.
My pulse skips. The warmth of his breath ghosts down my neck, dragging goosebumps in its wake.
I spin, trying to regain control, but he’s already anticipated it. The moment I turn, he steps in, backing me toward the table. My hips bump the edge. The flashlight’s beam drifts across my thighs as he plants both hands beside me, caging me in.
“Is that supposed to make me feel safe?” I murmur. I circle back to that theory he had in the car—about lust and safety. It makes him smile that smile of his. Hot. Dangerous. Just unhinged enough to make my already weak legs feel weaker.
“Depends,” he breathes. “The same knife you use to carve meat can gut a man when it needs to.”
I swallow hard. My fingers twitch on the edge of the table, but I don’t move. Maybe I can’t.
“Aren’t you supposed to be on watch?” I ask. “Keep this up and you’ll not only abandon your post. You’ll wake the others.”
“Nothing wakes them once they’re out.”
“Even with something like that roaming around?”
“Believe it or not,” he purrs, “they actually trust a bastard like me.” His gaze drops to my mouth, then rises again.
“That trust is the only reason they can fully shut down and rest, recover, and be ready to fight another day. You can’t track down murderers if you’re not sharp.
And you’re not sharp without real sleep. ”
“Weird,” I say. “That part where they trust you, I mean.”
Talon’s smile widens, slow and razor-edged. “Isn’t it just?”
His hands are still braced on the table, but the tension in his arms shifts, like he's holding something back. His thigh brushes mine, and I feel the friction of his gear: smooth leather, a buckle, the edge of something hard. A sheathed blade, maybe. Or something else.
“You shouldn’t be standing,” he murmurs, lowering his head. “You’re still weak.”
“I don't feel that weak,” I lie.
His eyes gleam. “You will soon.”
And then he moves, his lips finding mine, his hand sliding up my spine.
I tilt my chin up instinctively, breath hitching. “What are you doing?”
“What do you think?” he murmurs.
If Cassian saw him right now—if he saw us—I don’t know what he’d do.
He’d probably get up from that bed, throw Talon off me, tell him to fuck off with that gruff voice of his.
I don’t even know why my mind goes there, but it does.
Maybe it’s the contrast between the two of them. The difference I can’t stop craving.
“You’re not going to stop me,” Talon says, like it’s already decided. “Am I right, Little Grim?”
His fingers trail down my back, past my hips, lower, until the pad of his thumb finds the hem of the ugly neon orange scrubs I’m still wearing.
“No,” I say quietly. I don’t even know which part I’m denying. That he’s right? Or that I’m not going to stop him?
He leans in, just a little.
“I might be a lot of things, but I’m not stupid,” he murmurs. “I know why you got up and came here. You could’ve just ignored me and gone back to sleep.”
His hand slides up—slow, open-palmed—skimming under the edge of my shirt. My breath hitches. I should stop him. I should. But his touch feels too damn good.
“Correction: you are stupid,” I breathe, though there’s no bite to it. “And I was just curious about what you’re reading.”
“Mhm.” His voice dips into a low purr. “Had nothing to do with that little proposal I made earlier? The one that made you blush so pretty in the car?”
“Not even a little.”
He chuckles softly against my ear. “Come on, where’d that hungry little thing inside you go?” A teasing note slips into his voice. “Don’t make me beg.”