Chapter 12
Chloe
The heavy metal door slams behind us, sealing off the chaos inside with a dull thud. My back hits the rough brick wall, my legs unable to support my weight without help. The alley reeks of rancid essential oils and wet cardboard, but my nostrils flare with phantom scents of glitter and fear.
I suck air into uncooperative lungs while my heart hammers violently enough to pulse in my teeth.
Kolya remains perfectly still with his back to me, scanning the narrow passageway between buildings.
Even in crisis, he doesn’t sweat or tremble.
His shoulders rise and fall in controlled, measured breaths while mine heave like I’ve run a marathon.
Beneath his dark jacket, the muscles in his back form a wall of tension.
A hysterical laugh bubbles up my throat and then splinters like broken glass. “That’s… Wow.” I can’t make sense of anything. “We’ve got to think about that, right?” My teeth chatter.
The question barely leaves my mouth before Kolya’s right in front of me, radiating heat. Even though it’s eighty degrees out, I’m freezing. Probably shock. That’s how people get those silver emergency blankets in movies.
I squeeze my eyes shut, but the darkness behind my lids only worsens the spinning. My stomach lurches. “I think I’m going to be sick.” I open my eyes and glance up, expecting…what? Concern?
Instead, fury hardens every line of his face. “Why the hell did you stop to talk to the kid?”
The raw anger, which should scare me, actually anchors me, slowing the churning in my head.
I lift my chin. “He was afraid. He needed to feel safe.”
“Except it wasn’t safe.” The muscles in his jaw flex. “That’s why I told you to run.”
My shoulders droop. He’s right. I could have gotten the boy hurt.
I study my hands, mesmerized by the glitter glimmering in the sunlight. Pink. Green. Silver. Gold. “I know, but I just couldn’t. I ran once before and…” The rest sticks in my throat, choking me. “I had to…help.”
He can never understand. No one can. No one will ever know what it was like that night on the island.
Me, hiding. Crying. Fleeing from everything I knew.
“I couldn’t just leave him alone.” The way I was.
My legs buckle, and I slide down the wall and wrap my arms around my knees. The rough concrete digs into my thighs through my jeans. I stare at the pavement between my feet, focusing on a crumpled Hobby Hut receipt fluttering in the slight breeze that catches on my shoe before dancing away.
There’s glitter everywhere. Stuck to my hands, tangled in my hair, smudged across Kolya’s knuckles. The same knuckles that just sent a man crashing into a shelf. That broke another man’s bones.
That now hover near my shoulder, not quite touching. “You’re good.”
Maybe he intends to be reassuring, but the statement comes across as an order. He’s commanding me to be okay.
If only it worked that way.
My throat tightens. “I don’t feel good.”
His hand encircles my arm, and with effortless strength, he lifts me to my feet. “No one does after that.”
That’s comforting, at least.
My legs wobble, but he steadies me. “How do you know? How do you know how people feel after…an attempted robbery?”
Or whatever that was. When the idling vehicle on my street pops into my head, I shudder. What if someone’s been watching me? What if those men were here for me?
I search his face for a crack in the mask, for a hint of the man beneath.
His expression reveals nothing. “Like I said, private security. Gets messy sometimes.”
He leans closer, his body blocking out the rest of the world. The smells of the alley, the distant shouts from the store, the wail of approaching sirens… All else fades away until there’s only Kolya, solid and real.
“You kept moving. Eventually. That’s how you survive.” At the approval in his tone, my spine tingles.
Keep moving. The words unlock a secret I buried fifteen years ago.
Gunfire. Rain. The tropical storm that hit just as everything went to hell.
Past the bodies in the restaurant. Into the storm.
Away from the screams. The beach house porch I hid under, where I peeked through wooden slats as people yelled and died.
As a man raced by, bent low, gun in hand.
That split-second of eye contact we shared that stretched on forever.
I survived by first hiding and then moving. That’s exactly why I lived when others didn’t.
I haven’t stopped moving since. Nothing big like escapes or adventures or anything brave.
Just constant tiny actions filling every second.
My classroom schedule, my craft projects, my dating app, my endless, mindless chatter.
I’ve built my entire life around forward momentum, noise, and constant small needs so I never have to face the silence, where memories of the island wait.
Before, I never thought of myself as a survivor. Not until Kolya’s words.
When I nod, his hand drops from my arm, leaving a cold spot in place of his warmth.
Then he reaches out again, brushing glitter from my cheek with surprising gentleness for hands capable of such violence. His thumb lingers at my jaw, rough skin on soft flesh. “You good?” he asks this time.
My pulse thrums wildly in my throat, a trapped bird beating against a cage.
I want to respond in a peppy and upbeat way, like I would after a field trip gone wrong or a playground tumble.
“It’s fine,” or “Just a little excitement to brighten the day,” or “Nothing a good cup of hot chocolate won’t fix. ”
But I’ve never felt less like a kindergarten teacher. Less like myself. And nothing about this moment—this man, the madness in the store—can be spun into anything remotely upbeat.
Maybe upbeat isn’t always the goal.
Kolya regards me wordlessly.
I open my mouth, then close it. The truth rises up. “I’d tell you I’m fine, but I’m not.” I swipe my hands down my jeans. “And what is up with the creeps holding up a Hobby Hut on a Saturday afternoon?”
I’ve never admitted this. For so long, I’ve been “fine.” Always fine. Fine enough to function. Fine enough to fool everyone, including myself.
Kolya grazes his knuckles along my jaw in a caress that hitches my breath. “You will be. It just takes time.”
I force out a single, shaky laugh. He has no idea how much time it takes to forget. Fifteen years and counting, yet the memories of that trauma remain so vivid that I can still smell the salt air, feel the rain on my skin, and hear the gunshots echoing over the beach.
But maybe I don’t want to forget everything this time.
Maybe I want to remember the heat in Kolya’s eyes and the pressure of his hard fingers cupping my jaw. The way he moved to save me, not once but twice.
I laugh, desperate for some levity. “I think the store staff wanted to give you an award in there.”
“We should go.” His low rumble reminds me that we’re still in danger. That whatever happened in the store isn’t over.
“My place.” My response surprises me as much as him. “I have a first aid kit.”
A genuine smile—small but real—touches his mouth. The harsh edges of his face transform, smoothing out and softening the cold depths of his eyes. For a moment, he appears younger. Gentler. “Of course you do.”
His first smile after all this, and it’s for me.
As he stalks ahead—confident, alert, utterly in control—unexpected warmth unfurls in my chest. Not just attraction, though that’s still present, but a hot pulse beneath my fear. This is new. A recognition. A kinship.
We’re both survivors.
Different traumas and different worlds, but survivors all the same.