Chapter 4 #2
The bunk shrinks an inch. The curtain turns into a lid. The phone is a hot coal in my palm I can’t drop.
Breathe. Four in. Hold. Four out. I try and get shards.
My pulse is a snare roll in my ears, too fast to count.
Five things I can see: the curtain edge, the red outlet dot, the camera strap, the scuff on the wall, my knees.
Four things I can feel: the seam in the mattress, denim at my hip, the strap biting my wrist, my heartbeat—wild, useless.
Facts don’t help. He isn’t here, but my body doesn’t care—my body remembers the script. The room tilts. I taste metal. If I close my eyes, I hear his voice in the hallway. If I open them, I read the message again. Either way, he’s in the air. And I can’t get enough of it into my lungs.
The bunk curtain shifts.
I freeze.
It pulls back slowly.
“You hiding in here already?”
His voice is low—rasp wrapped in velvet. One hand on the frame, black hair pushed back, lip ring catching the light. The smirk dies the second he really looks at me.
“Hey,” he says, softer. “Sawyer.”
Air scrapes in my throat. I angle the phone face-down like I can shove the words back inside it.
He climbs in, but he doesn’t crowd. He stays a breath away, palms up where I can see them. “Can I touch you?”
I manage a nod.
His hand slides to my forearm, rubbing slow lines; the other settles warm on my thigh, anchoring. “With me,” he murmurs. “Four in… hold… four out.”
I try and my breath catches. He exaggerates his own breath so I can follow—long pull, beat, long release. His thumb keeps a steady rhythm on my arm, patient as a metronome.
“Look at me,” he says when my eyes skitter. I do. “Good,” he murmurs. “You’re here. On the bus. Safe.” A beat. “Tell me three things you can see.”
“Curtain. Red outlet light. Your ring.”
“Yeah.” A ghost smile. “Two things you can feel.”
“The strap. Your hand.”
“Perfect. One thing you can hear.”
“You.”
“Always.” His thumb keeps time on my forearm—slow, steady. “Right now it’s just this. You and me breathing. In… and out.”
The tight band around my ribs loosens a notch. The bus hum thrums beneath my spine; the curtain feels like fabric again, not a lid.
He doesn’t ask why. He doesn’t demand answers or look for something to fix. He just stays, warm and solid, rubbing my arm and the outside of my thigh in quiet circles until my breaths match his without counting.
“Better?” he asks after a moment, voice low.
“Better,” I manage.
“Good.” He doesn’t move away. “If you want the curtain closed, I’ll close it. If you want space, I’ll go.”
“Don’t go.”
“I’m not.” He leaves the curtain mostly closed, hands up like a peace offering. The smirk eases into something quieter. “Do you want to talk about it? I can shut up and listen. No judgment. Or we can sit here and breathe and say nothing. Your call.”
I hesitate. The phone feels like a hot coal in my palm. If I show him, it’s real again. If I don’t, it keeps eating the room.
He doesn’t push. Just bumps his knee against mine. “I’m here either way.”
I stare at the screen a second longer, then flip it over and hand it to him.
He reads. His jaw goes hard. “This is supposed to be your boyfriend?”
“Yeah.”
He huffs a humorless breath. “Great. I get a name-drop and zero royalties.”
“Sorry,” I mutter. “He always thinks everyone’s looking at me—trying to take me from him.”
Jasper gives me a look, a softer edge to the smirk. “Maybe he’s not wrong this time.”
My stomach knots. “What do you mean?”
“You’ve consumed me since the second I saw you,” he says, voice soft like he’s telling me a secret.
The words land too deeply.
“What? You don’t even know me,” I whisper.
“I know that you’ve been invisible so long,” he murmurs, his breath grazing my ear, “you don’t think anyone actually sees you, but I do.”
His voice drips down my spine. My throat works trying to swallow as I change the subject.
“He said I’m not good enough. That the job will ruin me.”
“Then he’s blind and boring.” Jasper types something into my phone and hands it back facedown like it’s garbage. “Darklight doesn’t hire just anybody.”
The tightness around my chest loosens another notch.
He bumps my knee. “We can keep talking, or I can deploy a truly terrible song as a distraction.”
“Please don’t.”
“Copy that.” His mouth tilts. “My number is in there now. Just call or text if you need me and I’ll come right back.”
The curtain falls and the bunk exhales with me. He sees me. Maybe I was wrong about him…
My phone is warm in my palm, his name sitting there like a lifeline instead of a leash.
I can still feel the ghost of his thumb on my arm, the bump of his knee, the way his voice gentled around the truth.
It flares in my chest—heat that isn’t panic, light that isn’t interrogation. Maybe I’m not a problem to manage.
The bus hums. My lungs remember how to work. I tuck the phone under my pillow like a secret and stare at the sliver of light at the curtain’s edge, counting the beats between now and the next breath.
JASPER
I ease the curtain closed and stand there a second, palm on the fabric like it’s the only thing between me and walking back in. Her breathing’s steady now. Mine isn’t. I can still feel the ghost of her pulse under my thumb, the tremor that leveled out because I asked it to. Because she let me in.
“This is supposed to be your boyfriend?”
Boyfriend.
I saw the lines in her eyes when she handed me the phone—shattered glass and grit. He knew exactly where to press. Shouldn’t have left. This job will ruin you. If you let him touch you…
My jaw clicks. I breathe through it. I didn’t push.
I didn’t crowd. I counted her breaths and she matched mine, and when she said don’t go, I stayed.
When she wanted a distraction, I offered a bad song and a better question.
When she handed me the truth, I didn’t gloat—I gave her my number and promised to come back if she asked. No judgment.
Who even was I back there?
I don’t comfort people. Maybe, it’s because it was her? I had every intention of getting in her bunk and making her sweat. Of forcing myself under her skin, the way she’s gotten under mine. But that changed when I saw the look in her eyes…
She had to of felt it—I know I did. That thick, silent pull between us.
My footsteps are slow. Each step is a leash I’m tightening around my throat. Because turning around—going back in there and finishing what I started? It’d be easy. Too fucking easy.
But I don’t want easy.
I want her to choose me, not out of spite or fear, not because Blake pushed her too far or tore her down first. I want it to be unbearable not to have me. I want her to need it—need me—so severely that the silence between touches feels like punishment.
I reach the end of the narrow hallway and stop, shoulder against the wall. I let my head fall back and close my eyes, replying every breath I just stole from her.
Get it together.
My hand curls into a fist against the nearest wall, knuckles cracking with restraint.
I count to ten. Then fifteen. I remind myself of what I’m doing.
Why I’m not rushing this. Predators don’t chase—they wait.
And she’s already halfway in the trap. One more touch, and she’ll think the fall was her idea.
And when she comes to me—when she finally asks for it?
I won’t stop.
I grind my jaw and take a breath, trying to steady myself, when I hear footsteps. Not soft enough to be hers.
Silas.
He rounds the corner with a hoodie pulled over his head, dragging one sleeve up to rub at his face like he just crawled out of the nearest pit of hell. His eyes land on me, narrowing in that older-brother way that always means trouble’s about to start.
“You good?” he asks, voice coated in suspicion.
I keep my gaze on the wall. It’s easier not to look at him. Easier to keep everything locked down when I’m not staring at someone who already knows too much.
“You ever want something so bad it makes your teeth ache?”
He raises an eyebrow. “You mean like caffeine, or are we talking about the new girl?”
I don’t answer. My silence says enough.
He sighs, muttering something under his breath, then scrubs a hand through his hair again. “Jesus, Jasper. It’s barely been twenty-four hours.”
“I’m not doing anything,” I mutter.
“Right.” His voice is dry. “You’re doing everything but, and you know it.”
That gets me to look at him. Just barely. A shift of my head. A glare.
“You saw how she looked at him.”
“I saw how she looked at you five minutes later.”
That pulls something sharp and crooked out of me. A grin, maybe. Or a warning.
Silas doesn’t flinch. He never does.
“Look,” he says, voice dropping, “I’m not here to tell you what lines to cross. But don’t break her. You want to tear the guy apart, fine— he deserves it. But her?”
I shove off the wall. “I’m not gonna break her.”
He narrows his eyes. “No?”
I shake my head slowly, as if the words themselves are a vow.
“I’m going to remake her.”
Silas mutters something under his breath that sounds an awful lot like ‘you’re fucking terrifying’, but he doesn’t push.
Instead, he starts down the hallway again.
Just before disappearing around the corner, he calls back, “At least wait until the first venue before you ruin her whole damn life.”
I don’t answer.
Because I’m already thinking about her again.
How close we were.
How she looked at me.
How it felt for her to need me.
Blake has ruined her, but I’m going to ruin her even more.
The difference is that I’ll make her love me for it.
***
Three hours until the first venue.
Tony, our driver, said we’re heading to Omaha, but I don’t give a shit where we’re headed. The only thing that matters is who’s with me.
Sleep claws at the edge of my skull, dragging me down by the roots, but my body’s still running high. Skin hot. Muscles coiled like I’m standing on stage with a thousand eyes burning into me.
I shouldn’t have gone into her bunk.
I shouldn’t have said all that shit like I meant every word.
But I did.
And now, she’s behind the same damn curtain, breathing the same air, and I can still feel the shape of her fear and curiosity wrapped around my throat.
Just sleep, Reign. Let it go for a few hours.
Yeah, sure.
I push off the wall, heading toward my room at the back of the bus, past the bunks. The hallway’s dim and narrow, vibrating with the constant hum of the road underneath us. Everyone else has gone quiet. Music’s off. Laughter faded.
But me?
My pulse is still screaming.
I stop before I even realize where my feet are taking me.
Her bunk. Middle, right side. Curtains drawn tight, like it’s supposed to keep something out—or in.
She’s asleep. I can’t tell by the rhythm of her breath—slow and deep, the exhale a body only gives when it’s finally let go, when the world stops demanding and just lets her rest. And fuck, if that doesn’t undo me.
Before I can stop myself, I’ve already pulled back her curtain, just enough to take in the sight of her.
She’s curled toward the wall, knees tucked slightly, blanket riding halfway up her back, with one arm folded beneath her head, her fingers tangled in the sheet like she needed something to hold on to.
Her mouth is parted just enough to make my pulse hitch.
Her brow—normally furrowed from too many unspoken thoughts—is soft now. Relaxed. No tension. No panic.
I lean in closer, one hand braced on the frame, and her scent hits me—strawberry shampoo and something warm beneath it, something sweet I can’t name, but it makes me think of teeth and skin. Her lashes twitch once, brushing her cheeks as if she’s chasing something in her sleep.
Or maybe being chased.
Is it about me yet?
Bzzz.
The vibration cuts through the stillness. A faint glow pulses beneath the blanket.
I shouldn’t.
I fucking know I shouldn’t.
But I do.
I shift in, careful not to wake her, every movement cautious. My fingers brush the edge of the blanket, lifting just enough to find the phone where it’s slipped beside her hip.
Blake.
Figures.
The glow from the screen casts a pale light over her peaceful face, and something inside me curdles. I tilt it just enough to read the previewed messages.
“I’m sorry for what I said. Hope you’re behaving.”
“Miss you already.”
“I was thinking about flying out to one of the venues. Surprise you.”
“You wouldn’t do anything stupid, right? You know you’re mine.”
“I’ll make it up to you for the fight, baby. You just need to let me.”
I don’t even realize I’m gripping the phone until my fingers ache—white-knuckled and pulsing.
No, motherfucker. What the fuck?
You lost her the second you made her feel like she had to apologize for taking up space. The second you fed her lies wrapped in apologies and called it love. The second you made her doubt herself.
You made your move.
Now it’s my turn.
I slide the phone back, and pull the blanket over her like I didn’t just touch something I had no right to.
I don’t touch her, but it takes everything I have. My restraint is a razor-thin thread pulled taut across a need I’ve been trying to chain down since the second I saw her.
A breath escapes as I take one last look. One last inhale of her scent before I turn away…
The sound of a curtain whipping back cracks through the silence like a warning shot.
Across the narrow hall—Jace. Hair a mess, mouth already curled in that smug, half-asleep smirk like he’s been waiting for this exact moment. His eyes flick from me to Sawyer’s bunk, then back again.
He doesn’t speak right away. Doesn’t have to, but when he does his voice is rough and full of teeth, “Trouble. She’s trouble.”
I don’t answer. Don’t even give him the satisfaction. Just give him a glare as I move past, shoulders tense, mind already unraveling.
But he chuckles. “She’s gonna wreck you, man.”
He’s not wrong, but I don’t stop.
Don’t turn around. I keep walking toward the back of the bus, each step harder than the last.
Maybe she is going to wreck me. But when I’m done, I’ll make sure she never forgets exactly who took her down with him.