18. Roman
ROMAN
The shower has been running for almost twenty minutes.
I’m sitting on the edge of my bed staring at the bathroom door like it might vanish if I look away. Steam keeps slipping out from beneath it, curling slowly into the room and carrying the faint scent of soap with it. I should probably move and do something useful.
Instead, I stay exactly where I am.
Fae asked to shower alone. The words were quiet but firm enough that I knew pushing back would only make things harder for her.
It still took every ounce of restraint I have to nod and step out of the bathroom when she closed the door behind me.
I drag a hand slowly down my face and glance toward the phone sitting on the bedside table.
If she wants to be alone, she can have that.
I will give her whatever she needs. But I can’t leave her sitting in silence again.
When was the last time she had noise around her that wasn’t tied to fear?
My gaze drifts back to the bathroom as ‘Call Your Mum by Noah Kahan ft. Lizzy McAlpine’ rings through both rooms. I dropped a pair of jogging bottoms and a soft hoodie on the counter for her before she turned the water on.
It was the only thing I could think to do in a moment like this.
Something simple and ordinary on a day where everything else feels anything but.
I’ve only just got her back but the fear of losing her again sends fear lancing through me.
I won’t lose her physically, of course. I won’t let her out of my sight again.
But mentally? Who knows. I just know the idea of her slipping somewhere I can’t reach feels like the ground giving way beneath my feet.
I haven’t been able to function without her, and whatever demons are clawing at her right now, whatever ghosts followed her out of that place, I want to face them with her.
I just don’t know how to prove it yet.
The sound of the shower finally cuts off and my chest tightens as my attention snaps toward the bathroom door.
A faint rustle of fabric follows and a moment later the door opens.
My hoodie swallows her whole, the sleeves hang well past her hands whilst the fabric falls loosely around her thighs.
Her hair is still damp; dark strands cling to her cheeks and the curve of her neck as droplets slide slowly down her jaw before disappearing into the collar of the hoodie.
Her eyes are red, the skin around them raw and slightly swollen like she’s been fighting off tears in the shower.
“Come here,” I say quietly as I open my arms for her.
She pauses long enough to swipe the back of her hand beneath her eyes before crossing the room.
When she reaches me, I pull a towel from the bedpost and guide her gently down onto the mattress in front of me.
I start drying her hair, working the towel through the strands in patient movements.
Water darkens the fabric as I move it from root to tip, careful not to tug when the knots catch.
She stays silent. Every now and then her chest shudders slightly with the small hitch of someone doing everything they can to keep the tears from starting again.
She loses the battle anyway.
The first tear slips down her cheek, tracing a line along her skin before dropping from her chin.
Another follows. The towel falls from my hands onto the bed as I lean forward, catching the tears with my thumb and gently turning her so her back rests against my chest. My arms come around her, holding her there with a steady pressure.
“Would you like to talk about it?” I murmur. “You don’t have to, but I’m here.”
She slips out of my arms and even though I’m trying to move at her pace, it still stings. She was never this hesitant about my touch before and the shift throws me. I don’t know how to deal with it, so I force myself to stay where I am instead of pulling her back against me.
She doesn’t go far; she just turns and settles cross-legged on the bed between my open thighs.
Her head drops as she chews on her bottom lip hard enough that the skin is already paling under the pressure and I have the fleeting thought that she might draw blood if she doesn’t stop.
Her hands drift to the fabric of the jogging bottoms and she starts worrying at a loose thread near the seam, twisting it slowly between her fingers.
I give her the space to do it, counting slowly in my head to keep myself from pushing.
One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six.
“I’m pregnant,” she blurts.
I blink.
My mind blanks for a beat, struggling to catch up with what she just said.
Pregnant.
My first instinct is pure, overwhelming joy. I want to pull her into me, lift her off the bed, celebrate the life she’s carrying like it’s the most miraculous thing I’ve ever heard. But the look on her face stops me cold.
There’s no happiness there. No excitement.
Only fear.
Guilt presses in and the memory of the pills I switched out flashes through my mind as she sits in silence.
I reach forward, gently freeing her hands from where they’ve twisted themselves together and thread my fingers through them.
I squeeze softly and finally allow the smile I’ve been holding back to surface.
“I’m really happy, Tink, if that’s what you’re worried about,” I say gently.
She lets out an unsteady laugh that carries none of the warmth a laugh should have. It trembles out of her like something brittle snapping under the pressure. The air between us tightens with the weight of half-hidden truths.
“You don’t understand,” she whispers.
“Okay,” I reply quietly, keeping my voice steady. “Then make me understand.”
She drags in a deep breath, gathering herself before finally lifting her eyes to mine.
“When I got taken, Quinn set me up—”
“I know,” I cut in quietly. “And I killed her for it.”
Her head jerks back.
“W—what?” she gasps.
For the first time since she walked into this room, something flickers behind her eyes. Not joy exactly, but a small spark of life breaking through the exhaustion.
I give her a gentle nod.
“She’s dead, Fae,” I repeat softly. “I told you, anyone who hurts you will die.”
The light fades almost as quickly as it appeared.
Her expression shifts again and the sadness creeps back in until she’s looking at me with something close to pity.
My pulse kicks up hard at that look as a quiet dread settles beneath my ribs about what she must have seen… what she must have endured.
“You say that now…” she murmurs, her voice trailing off.
“I’ll say it later too,” I reply firmly.
She studies my face for a beat longer before giving a small, defeated shake of her head.
“Okay,” she says quietly, drawing her shoulders up as if bracing herself. “After Quinn, I woke up in a room. I was disoriented and confused. Robyn was there.”
My eyebrows lift at that.
“They’d been moving her between warehouses so no one could trace her,” she continues. “I thought it was…” She stops herself, shaking her head. “That part isn’t important right now.” Her fingers tighten around mine. “Anyway, when I was there Fisher came.”
“He did things to me,” she whispers. “He… he starved me,” she shakes her head, “he tortured me,” she gulps, “and raped me.”
Every word she says lands like another blade sliding slowly under my skin and carving deeper with each sentence.
Heat crawls up the back of my neck as a violent pulse of anger makes my fingers curl tighter around hers.
It feels like a thousand shallow cuts burning across my nerves as I sit there and listen to the things that were done to her.
The urge to move and tear apart the world that allowed it to happen is so strong it makes my hands shake.
“That man is a dead” I snarl.
Fae just gives a small, tired smile and shakes her head. “He already is.”
This time it’s me who jolts back and my mouth drops open.
“Robyn killed him.”
The room goes quiet before I force my mouth closed as the words settle.
For the first time since she started speaking, I don’t have anything to say.
Sweet, happy Robyn… the girl who used to laugh at everything and prank everyone…
killed Fisher. Good for her. A sense of relief slides through my chest despite the violence of it, and the heaviness eases beneath my ribs at the knowledge that Fisher will never touch her again.
He will never touch anyone again. Two of the three people who destroyed Fae’s life are already gone. Only one remains.
Fae must feel the shift in my body because she swallows before she looks back up at me. The tension in the room gathers again, and a crease forms between my brows as I realise she isn’t finished yet.
“The baby… might be his,” she whispers.
The words barely leave her mouth before her whole body begins to shake, like the effort of saying them has snapped the last thread holding her together.
My stomach drops as nausea slams into me and the air in the room seems to suffocate me.
I hold her gaze, forcing every inch of my expression to stay steady even as violent thoughts shift through my head.
I feel my nostrils flare as I gulp before gently squeezing her fingers that are still wrapped in mine.
“That baby is mine,” I say with a lump in my throat.
She blinks. “You’re not listening…”
“No, Tink, you’re not listening. That baby is mine,” I repeat with a steadier voice this time even whilst my heart is trying to rearrange itself inside my chest. “Do you hear me?”
“Roman—” Her eyes fill again.
“I don’t give a single fuck whose DNA is running through their blood,” I continue quietly. “Their mummy is mine. That makes them mine too.” My hand moves instinctively to her stomach. “And I will die protecting both of you.”
Her entire face collapses in on itself.
The last of her composure shatters and she breaks down completely; sobs tearing out of her chest as the tension she’s been holding finally gives way.
I pull her into me. This time she doesn’t resist. Her body melts into my hold like she’s finally run out of strength to keep fighting it, and her fingers clutch the front of my shirt even as her shoulders shake with each broken breath.
I hold her tighter and start swaying gently where we’re sitting, one hand moving slowly up and down her back in quiet, steady strokes.
The relief that settles through me is almost dizzying.
This.
This is what she’s been carrying.
All that fear. All that dread sitting behind her eyes since she walked back into this house. She thought this would be the thing that broke us. That this was the moment I would look at her differently.
My beautiful, silly Tinkerbell.
The realisation that I haven’t lost her moves through me like oxygen flooding a room that’s been starved of air. My lungs finally feel as though they can expand again as I hold her closer, letting the quiet certainty settle deep in my bones.
“Is that what you were scared of?” I ask quietly against her hair.
“Yes,” she whispers.
“I told you,” I murmur. “None of this was your fault. And I can’t wait to meet our baby.”
Her head lifts at that. Her bottom lip trembles as she reaches up and her hands come to cradle my face. Her fingers are warm against my skin and her thumbs brush lightly along my jaw whilst she studies me.
“I love you, Roman.”
My heart expands as emotion surges up so suddenly I have to clear my throat just to keep it under control. Since she disappeared, I’ve cried more times than I’ll ever admit out loud, and right now it takes real effort to stop it from happening all over again.
“I love you too, Tinkerbell. So, fucking much.”
I lean in and kiss her, and this time she meets me without hesitation.
The warmth in it is unmistakable as her love flows through the action and her hands slide up to my jaw.
Fae’s fingertips brush through the roughness of my stubble as I pull her closer and my palm spreads across the length of her back.
The kiss deepens slowly, unhurried and full of the kind of quiet intensity that only comes from nearly losing someone.
It feels grounding and familiar, like something inside me is finally settling back into place.
It feels like I’m coming home after wandering somewhere too long without direction.
When she finally pulls away, we stay close as our foreheads rest together and our breathing slowly evens out.
“We should go downstairs,” she whispers.
“Okay,” I sigh, even though every instinct in me wants to keep her right here and away from the questions waiting for us downstairs. “But wait… what happened after Robyn killed Fisher?” I ask gently.
“I think…” she says slowly. Her gaze drifts toward the bedroom door. “I think we need to go downstairs and talk to your mum for the next part.”
I frown as a tight knot forms back in my stomach.
The fact she could sit here and tell me she might be carrying her rapist’s child, yet still holds this back, sends a slow thread of unease creeping through my chest. The fact my mum is somehow involved in whatever comes next doesn’t help settle it either.
Fae’s hands slide gently over my arms, rubbing the goose pimples that formed across my skin as I tip my head back toward the ceiling and draw in a slow breath.
“Let’s go,” I murmur.
We untangle ourselves and stand, the warmth of her leaving my arms is replaced by a cold sense of foreboding. It’s almost as if we both know the moment we step out of this room, everything is about to change.