Chapter 13 #2
For almost a year, I've been running. Hiding. Looking over my shoulder, waiting for the knock on the door, the shadow in the corner, the hand closing around my throat.
And now it's over.
I look across the room at Diesel.
Maya's finishing up. She tapes down a final bandage, shaking her head.
"Daniels didn't know where to aim. Orc anatomy's different—heart's lower, organs are shifted. He hit meat and muscle, nothing vital. Dumb luck for you, bad aim for him."
Diesel grunts. "Feels pretty vital."
"It'll feel worse tomorrow." Her eyes move between us. "We need to move. Vargan's prepping the clinic, but you're fading faster than I'd like."
Diesel tries to push off the wall. Crow catches him before he lists sideways.
"Easy." Crow gets under his arm. "Save the tough guy shit for when you're not leaking."
Ash turns to me. "You ready?"
I look around the apartment one last time. The blood on the floor. The shattered door frame. The life I thought I was coming back to.
I know what I want.
I think I've known since he woke me up from that nightmare and told me I was safe.
"Yeah. Let's go."
***
The back of Ash's Bronco isn't built for a seven-foot orc.
They maneuver him in, fold down part of the back seat. His head and shoulders end up in my lap, all that muscle and mass slumped against me.
This is the first time I've held him. He's always been the wall between me and everything else. Now he's bleeding in my arms and I'm the one keeping him here.
Maya climbs into the front seat. Ash takes the wheel.
"Keep pressure here." Maya reaches back, guides my hand to the bandage on Diesel's shoulder. "Hard as you can. You're not going to hurt him."
I press down. He flinches. My other arm wraps around his chest.
"Eden." His voice is barely there. "I need to tell you—"
"Shh." I brush my fingers over his forehead. His skin is clammy, cooler than it should be. "Rest."
"But—"
"Rest." I smooth the hair back from his face. "We have time. I'm not going anywhere."
He looks at me. Heavy-lidded, fighting to stay open.
"Holding you to that."
I can't speak for a second. "Do."
He exhales, his whole body going slack, his eyes closing.
I hold him, keeping pressure on his wound, watching his chest rise and fall.
***
Maya's clinic is in the center of town. Vargan and Knox are waiting when we pull in—blood already drawn, bags ready for transfusion.
They carry Diesel inside. I try to follow, but Maya blocks the door.
"Surgery. Could be hours." She points toward the house next door—hers. "Shower. Sleep. I'll come get you when he's out."
"I'm not leaving."
"You're covered in blood and running on fumes." Her voice softens, just barely. "He's going to need you when he wakes up. Take care of yourself so you can take care of him."
Crow walks me next door and finds me clean clothes. I shower. I don't sleep.
I'm back in the clinic before my hair dries, sitting in the chair someone put next to his bed.
Now he's still, his olive skin gone gray at the edges, bandages wrapped tight around his shoulder and side. Machines beep in rhythms I've memorized.
I'm holding his hand—have been since I sat down. His fingers are slack in mine, but warm. Alive.
I think about what it was like before him. All those weeks of running, hiding, jumping at every sound. And then one night alone in my apartment—and I almost didn't survive it.
I won't do that to him. When he wakes up, I'll be here.
The door opens. Maya slips in, tablet in hand, reading glasses perched on her nose. She looks exhausted—dark circles, hair escaping its ponytail—but her eyes are sharp.
"How is he?"
"Same." I don't let go of his hand. "Still out."
She checks the monitors, makes a note on her tablet.
"He lost a lot of blood. Cracked ribs from the door—I've got them wrapped and stabilized.
Contusions, lacerations, split knuckles.
" She rattles it off the way she'd read a grocery list. "But he's an orc.
Give him a few months, he'll be good as new. "
A few months. I touch my own shoulder—the graze from the safehouse, ten days old and still healing.
I remember Diesel changing the bandage, his big hands so careful, the way he wouldn't meet my eyes.
"He'll probably sleep through the night," Maya says. "Maybe longer. I've got eyes on him round the clock." She pauses to study me. "When did you last sleep?"
"I'm fine."
"That's not what I asked."
I don't answer.
She sighs and sets the tablet down. "I have sleeping pills. The good kind—knock you out for eight hours, no dreams. There's a bed in the next room. I'll wake you if anything changes."
"No. I want to be here when he wakes."
Maya watches me for a long moment. Then she nods.
"Okay." She picks up her tablet. "I'll be in my office. Crow's with me. Ash drove back to Atlanta—he and Nova are putting together the evidence to bury Venetti for good." She pauses at the door. "He cares about Diesel. We all do."
She leaves.
I turn back to Diesel and watch his chest rise and fall.
The nightmare is over. The running. The hiding.
I killed a man today.
I felt the recoil. Watched him drop.
I'm waiting for the guilt to hit. For the shaking to start.
It doesn't come.
Daniels. His friendly smile. The mask that slipped. The gun in my face, the note in his pocket, the life he was about to steal from me.
I would do it again without hesitation.
Maybe I'm the monster now.
I'm not sure I mind.
The door opens. Different footsteps this time—lighter, slower.
A woman steps in carrying a covered dish. Fortyish, dark hair streaked with gray, attractive in a lived-in way. She stops when she sees me.
"Oh." Her eyes flick to Diesel, then back to me. "You must be Eden."
I nod but don't let go of his hand.
She sets the dish on the side table. "I'm Helen. I work at the town diner." She looks at Diesel, then back at me. "How is he?"
"Maya says he'll recover." My voice breaks on the last word. "God, I hope she's right."
"Diesel's too stubborn to die on us." Helen shakes her head. "They all are."
She gestures to the dish. "Chicken and dumplings—his favorite. Brought plenty for both of you." She pats my shoulder. "When he wakes up, make sure you both eat."
"I will."
She pauses at the door and looks back at Diesel one more time.
"We worry about him," she says quietly. "All of us. He's—" She stops and shakes her head. "He's family."
She leaves.
People showing up with food. Checking on him. Calling him family.
He doesn't know how loved he is. I'm going to make sure he finds out.
I look at the covered dish, at the door she walked through, at the orc in the bed.
***
I don't mean to fall asleep.
One minute I'm watching his face, the way his tusk catches the dim light. The next, my head is on the mattress beside his hip and I'm drifting, pulled under by exhaustion I've been fighting for hours.
I don't know how long I'm like that.
What wakes me is his hand moving in mine, fingers tightening.
I lift my head. His eyes are open. Barely—slits of dark and gold—but open.
"Eden."
"I'm here."
"Ravgor," he breathes, eyes half-lidded. "Call me Ravgor."
My throat tightens. He told me that name the night he stayed with me through my nightmare. Fire-touched. Marked by flame. The name his people gave him before the camps, before everything.
And he's giving it to me.
"Ravgor," I whisper, leaning close. "I'm here, Ravgor."
His eyes close. The tension in his face unknots—broken, bleeding, alive, and hearing his name from my mouth is what he needed.
"Stay," he murmurs. "The cottage. Shadow Ridge. Me."
I think about all the places I've been this year. My apartment that never felt safe. The safe houses that weren't. The hotel rooms that blurred together.
And the cottage. The creaky floors. The kitchen that smelled like whatever he was cooking. The bed that was too small where I slept better than I had in years.
"Okay."
His breath catches.
"Okay?" His voice cracks. "You mean—"
"I'm staying."
The bed is bigger than I expected. Oversized—made for someone larger than human. Still not meant for two.
I don't care.
I stand. His hand tightens on mine—instinct, or fear, I don't know.
"I'm not leaving." I kick off my shoes. "Scoot over."
"Eden—"
"I'm getting in that bed. You can argue, or you can save your strength. Your choice."
A sound escapes him—almost a laugh. "Stubborn."
"Learned from the best."
I figure out how to slide in without hurting him. It takes maneuvering—his shoulder is a no-go zone, and I'm careful of his wrapped ribs. But eventually I'm there, pressed against his uninjured side, my head on his chest.
He's warm. Warmer than he should be—probably still fighting off fever. He smells like antiseptic and bandages and, underneath it, sawdust and pine and skin. I breathe it in.
Something in my chest unlocks. A tightness I've been carrying so long I forgot it was there.
I can hear his heartbeat under my ear. Still going.
His arm comes around me—not much pressure, but there.
"Rest now," I tell him. "You need to heal."
"Only if you stay."
"I promise." I press my lips to his chest, just over his heart. "I'm not going anywhere."
His breathing evens out and his body goes slack beneath me as sleep pulls him under again.
I close my eyes. His chest rises and falls beneath me, steady now.
Today I killed a man. The guilt still hasn't come.
Maybe it never will.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, words are stirring. Not a full sentence yet. Just the shape of one. The beginning of something I might write, someday, when I'm ready to make sense of all this.
I'm not ready yet. But I will be.
Diesel's hand is still on my wrist. Even in sleep, he's holding on.
So am I.