Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
Diesel
Itake my showers cold now.
Not by choice. Orcs run hot—always have. I need the water scalding just to feel it. But there's only one water heater in this cottage, and she likes her showers long.
So I wait until she's done. Use what's left. Tell myself the cold is good for discipline.
This morning, it's barely lukewarm. I stand under the weak spray and let it run over my shoulders, my chest, the scars I've been collecting for fifteen years. The cold helps. Clears my head. Keeps me from thinking about her on the other side of that wall, wet skin and steam and—
I shut off the water.
Jeans on. Didn't think to grab a clean shirt before I got in—I'll get one from the bedroom after.
When I open the bathroom door, she's not in the kitchen.
She's standing at the hallway mirror, shoulder twisted awkwardly, fingers fumbling with the edge of her bandage. Trying to see what she's doing. Failing.
She catches my reflection and freezes.
I'm in jeans and nothing else. Still dripping. Water runs down my chest, catches in the ridges of old scars, pools at my waistband.
Her eyes travel down. Over the raised lines across my chest. The puckered burn on my shoulder. The hard planes of my stomach, the trail of dark hair disappearing into denim. Then back up. Her throat moves.
"I was just—" She gestures at her shoulder. "The tape's peeling."
"Sit down."
"I can almost reach it—"
"Almost isn't done. Sit down."
She sits in the kitchen chair, facing away from me. I grab the med kit from under the sink and pull up a chair behind her.
"You could put on a shirt," she says. Her voice sounds strange.
"Clothes are in the bedroom."
"Which is six feet away."
"And you're right here." I peel back the old bandage. "Hold still."
She holds still. And yeah, maybe I'm enjoying this a little. Payback for all those mornings in my shirt, making me forget how to think straight.
The wound looks better. The angry red has faded to pink, the edges pulling together clean.
"These have to come off," I say, working the first strip free. "Seal's done its job. Now it needs air to finish."
"Seems counterintuitive. Breaking what's protecting it."
"Sometimes that's how healing works. Hold on too long, it heals wrong. Gotta break it open. Let it breathe."
She's quiet. I keep working. One strip, then another. Her fingers dig into her thighs.
In the mirror, I watch her watch me. Her chest rising and falling too fast. Her teeth pressed into her bottom lip.
I should say something else. Break the tension. Instead my palm stays where it is, flat against her shoulder, against the place where her skin is knitting itself back together.
She exhales. Shaky.
My thumb traces the edge of the scar—pink and shiny, still tender. She shivers. Not from cold.
"It'll fade," I say. My voice comes out rough.
"I don't mind it." Barely a whisper. "Scars mean you survived."
Her eyes find mine in the mirror. Hold.
My hand is still on her shoulder. All I'd have to do is lean down. Press my mouth to the curve of her neck. Drag my tusk across that soft pink skin and feel her shudder.
She tilts her head. Just slightly. Baring her throat.
Fuck.
I step back so fast I knock the chair into the wall.
"Diesel—"
"I need a shirt." Already moving. "Stay there."
I don't look back. If I look back, I'm not making it to the bedroom.
***
She's at her laptop again. Hasn't typed a word in days.
I found a notebook in Murphy's stuff last night. Set it next to her elbow.
She looks at it, then at me.
"Screen's not staring back at you," I say.
She takes it to the bedroom without a word.
I stay on the couch. Listen to the scratch of pen on paper through the wall. Steady. Rhythmic. The sound of her finding her way back to herself.
I wait until it stops. Until the light under her door goes dark. Until her breathing slows into something even and deep.
Then I go to her.
She doesn't wake when I ease onto the mattress. Doesn't stir when the frame creaks under my weight.
I stay on top of the covers. Don't slip under. Don't let myself have that.
But I'm here. Close enough to hear when the nightmare starts. Close enough to pull her out before it drags her under.
The monster who chases away nightmares.
A huff escapes me—one beat, barely a sound. More breath than laugh.
Yeah. Red would've gotten a kick out of that one.
She sighs in her sleep. Turns toward me, her hand sliding across the blanket until her fingers brush my arm.
I don't move. Don't breathe.
She settles. Her hand stays where it landed.
I let it.
***
Next afternoon, Eden's been quiet for hours. Moved from the kitchen table to the couch to the bedroom and back, notebook in hand, pen never stopping. She's finally at peace, and it's all thanks to a ninety-nine-cent notebook I found in a junk drawer.
I'm slicing tomatoes for lunch when I hear it.
I go still. My hand finds the Glock taped under the counter before I'm conscious of reaching for it.
Voices. Distant but getting closer. Two of them, maybe three—male, loud. The crunch of boots on dead leaves. Someone mentions a buck.
Hunters. Off-trail, probably tracking something.
Eden's head snaps up. The pen freezes mid-word.
I tuck the Glock at the small of my back and cross the room in three strides, pulling her up and away from the window. Her back hits my chest, my arm wrapped around her, both of us pressed against the far wall.
She doesn't make a sound. Goes where I put her.
The voices get louder. Someone laughing. A joke I can't make out.
Her heart hammers against my forearm. She's rigid, barely breathing.
The voices peak, then fade. Moving away.
The danger passes.
Neither of us moves.
I should let her go. Should step away.
"False alarm," I manage.
"Yeah." Her voice is barely a whisper.
I still don't let go.
Her pulse slows. Her body softens against mine. Then she turns and lets her forehead drop against my chest.
"I hate being afraid all the time," she says.
My hand finds the back of her head. Holding her there.
"A few more days. Then it's over."
She pulls away. Doesn't go back to her notebook. Stands in the middle of the room, arms crossed, jaw set.
"The guns," she says. "Teach me how to use them."
I blink. "What?"
"I asked Carver half a dozen times before the interview even happened. Wanted to learn for book research." Her voice is flat. Hard. "He blew me off every time. And I'm done asking."
"Eden—"
"I froze just now. When I heard them." She meets my eyes, and there's no fear there anymore. Just decision. "I didn't know what else to do. I'm sick of not knowing what else to do."
"You've seen me with a couple pistols. That doesn't mean—"
"I know you have more. And I know you know how to use them."
She's not wrong.
"It's not like the internet," I say. "Whatever you think you learned from research is only enough to get you hurt."
"Then teach me right."
"And we can't exactly practice out here without drawing attention."
"Hunters have been shooting all week. One more gun won't stand out." She crosses her arms. "Unless you have a better idea."
I do. Suppressor in the closet. But I'm not telling her that yet.
She's not going to let this go. I can see it in her eyes.
"After dinner," I say.
"Promise."
I grunt.
"No. With words." She doesn't blink. "Promise me."
"I promise."
She nods once and goes back to her notebook.
***
The light's almost gone when I set up in the shed. Targets made from scrap cardboard, propped against hay bales Murphy left behind. The Glock 19 stripped, cleaned, reassembled. Suppressor threaded on.
She appears in the doorway. Changed into jeans and one of my flannels, sleeves rolled to her elbows. Ready.
"First rule," I say. "Every gun is loaded—"
"Even when it's not. Never point it at anything you're not willing to destroy.
Finger off the trigger until you're ready to fire.
" She meets my eyes. "I'm a thriller writer, Diesel.
I've held guns. Done a range session. Asked a lot of questions.
" A beat. "What I haven't had is someone who actually knows what they're doing correcting my form. "
Fair enough.
I hold out the Glock, grip toward her.
She takes it. Checks the chamber without being told. Good. But I see the way she swallows when she feels the weight. Different when it's not a rental at a range. Different when it matters.
"Show me what you've got," I say.
She squares up to the target. Close to right, but not quite.
I tap the inside of her ankle with my boot. "Tighter. Drop your weight."
She adjusts. Takes aim. Fires.
The suppressor cuts the sound to a sharp crack. The cardboard punches inward, low and left of center.
"Again."
She resets. Breathes. Squeezes.
Still left.
"You're anticipating the recoil." I step in front of her. Face her directly. "Look at me."
She does. Green eyes wide, a little wild.
I put my hands on her shoulders. Square them. Feel the flutter of her pulse in her throat.
"This is what the internet can't teach you. The gun is a tool. You're in control. Not the weapon. Not the fear. You."
She holds my gaze. Something shifts behind her eyes—the fear settling, hardening into something else.
"Again," she says.
I step aside.
She turns to the target. Plants her feet. Raises the Glock.
She fires.
The suppressor swallows the worst of it, but the thwack still echoes in my chest. Bark splinters off the dead pine.
"Again," I say.
She does. Steadier this time. Feet planted. Arms locked.
Three more shots. Two hit. One goes wide.
"Breathe. You're holding it in."
She exhales. Fires again. Dead center.
"Good."
She lowers the weapon. Stares at it.
"It's just metal," I say. "You're the one who decides what it does. And remember — hesitation gets you killed. You decide before you draw. Not after."
Her jaw tightens.
She raises the Glock.
And empties the magazine.
Shot after shot after shot—fast, brutal, reckless. The pine shudders. Bark explodes. She doesn't stop until the slide locks back and the silence crashes down like a hammer.
Her arms drop.
She's shaking. Tears streaming. Chest heaving.
But she doesn't fall.
She stands there—gutted and furious and still standing—and I see it all.
Every sleepless night. Every nightmare she white-knuckled her way through.
Every moment she wanted to shatter and didn't. The fear she's been choking on for weeks and the rage underneath it, the part of her that's done being hunted, done being small, done waiting for permission to survive.
She doesn't say a word.
She doesn't have to.
I step toward her. Take the gun. The barrel burns my palm. I tuck it into my waistband and the heat sears through and I don't feel it. I don't feel anything but her.
My hands find her shoulders.
She looks up at me. Wrecked. Raw. Unbroken.
There you are.
"Eden." My voice comes out broken. "I'm not—" I stop. Try again. "The last person who got close to me burned for it."
She grabs the front of my shirt.
And I'm gone.
I crash into her.
There's nothing gentle about it. Nothing slow. My mouth finds hers and I take like I've been starving for it—because I have. Days of watching her. Days of keeping my hands to myself. Days of drowning three feet from air.
She gasps and I swallow the sound, my hand sliding into her hair, fisting at the roots. Her back hits the shed wall and the whole thing shudders and I don't care, I don't care about anything except the way she's clinging to me, her fingers twisted in my shirt like she's afraid I'll disappear.
I'm not going anywhere.
I bite her bottom lip. She moans—this broken, desperate sound that goes straight through me—and I lose whatever thread of control I had left. I grip her hip, haul her closer, pin her between my body and the wall. She arches into me. Nails dig into my shoulders through my shirt.
"Diesel—"
I kiss her harder. I don't want to hear my name. I don't want to hear anything that sounds like a question, like doubt, like wait. I want her gasping. I want her shaking. I want her as wrecked as I am.
She gives as good as she gets. Her teeth catch my lip. Her hands shove under my shirt, palms flat against my stomach, and I groan against her mouth. She's not soft. She's not careful. She's fighting for this the same way she fights for everything—like survival.
I pull back just enough to breathe. Rest my forehead against hers. We're both panting. Her lips are swollen. Her eyes are wet but blazing.
"Tell me to stop," I manage. "Say it once and I will."
She fists my shirt. Yanks me back down.
"I said don't you dare."
I lift her. Her legs wrap around my waist. The Glock digs into my spine and I don't feel it. I don't feel anything but her—her heat, her weight, her heartbeat slamming against mine.
She kisses me like she's proving something. Like she's rewriting every moment she ever felt powerless.
And I let her.
I let her take whatever she needs.