8. Keira
KEIRA
I hear footsteps. Heavy. Angry. Each step is a stomp, echoing off the stone. The sound of someone too used to people obeying him and too close to snapping when they don’t.
It must be Jayson.
I sit up straighter without realizing it.
His eyes cut toward me—sharp, unreadable, dark as a blade before it’s unsheathed.
I force myself not to shrink beneath the weight of his stare.
The silence between us thickens. He doesn’t say anything at first, just watches me.
His jaw flexes. His hands stay at his sides, clenched like he’s resisting the urge to hit something. Or someone.
Then, finally?—
“Tell me what you were doing there.”
His voice is low, measured. But there’s something behind it. It’s not accusation; it’s like he’s trying to line up facts in his head and doesn’t know where I fit in the pattern.
“I live there,” I murmur, brows drawn together. “Why would that even be a question?”
“You live on campus,” Jayson says, his voice tight, probing. “ You weren’t supposed to be home. Why did you come home this weekend?”
I drop my gaze. He seems to know alot about my routine if he knows I wasn’t supposed to be home. Does he know I haven’t been back in almost two years?
The blanket shifts slightly on my shoulders as I tense, the silence between us thickening like a fog.
I don’t answer. Not because I don’t want to—but because I can’t.
Because how do you explain that sometimes, going home isn’t a choice?
That sometimes it’s just the last square left on the board, and you land there bruised and breathless, not because it’s safe—but because everywhere else felt worse?
I hadn’t planned on it. God knows I didn’t want to come back. But I was tired. Confused. Out of options. I was running. Not toward anything—but away from something else. And the only place I could crash without raising questions was the one place that never really felt like mine.
Home.
I swallow hard, keeping my eyes on the floor. I feel his stare, sharp and waiting, like he’s trying to pry the answer out of me with silence alone. But I keep quiet. Because the truth? It would only open more doors I’m not ready to walk through. Not with this stranger.
“No one was supposed to be home,” he snaps, when the silence stretches too thin. “Why did you come home?”
I swallow hard. The water I drank earlier didn’t do much. My throat still feels like it’s lined with gravel.
“I missed home, so I came to spend the weekend.” I shrug under the blanket.
“Who else knew you were there?”
“No-one but my father.”
He studies me with that same unnerving focus that makes it feel like he’s peeling me open from the inside out, trying to figure out how honest I’m being.
“What time did you arrive?”
“Late afternoon. I took a bus, not that it matters.”
“It matters,” he says. “Did you speak to him?”
I hesitate. His eyes narrow.
“Yes,” I say. “Briefly. He was surprised to see me. Told me to stay in my room, said he had work to do.”
“And you listened?”
I laugh under my breath. “Do I look like someone who follows instructions?”
That cracks something in his expression—just a flicker. I think it may be amusement, but the emotion vanishes before I can place it.
“Why were you wandering around last night?”
“I wanted water. My father’s door was open.”
“And?”
“That’s unusual. He never sleeps with his door open. I went to check on him.”
He presses a hand to the bars, fingers curling around cold iron.
“I didn’t know you were there,” he says. “You weren’t supposed to see that.”
“No one’s supposed to see their father get shot to death,” I say softly. “But shit happens.”
Another silence stretches. His knuckles whiten against the bar. He exhales slowly, a sound like something he’s been holding for too long finally leaving his lungs.
“ Unfortunate shit,” he corrects.
“I won’t tell anyone,” I say, my voice lower now, steadier, like maybe if I say it gently enough, he’ll believe me.
But Jayson’s eyes only darken. That faint flicker of something human vanishes behind cold steel .
“Everyone says that,” he murmurs. “Right up until the secret starts corroding inside them. Until it gets too heavy, too loud, and they can’t keep it down anymore.”
He leans in just slightly—close enough that I feel the chill in his words.
I meet his eyes. “And you? What were you, Jayson, before you decided you were judge, jury, and executioner?”
He doesn’t answer. The silence drags, stretching taut between us, and still he says nothing. So I keep going. Because someone has to.
“Let me guess,” I murmur. “You only kill the bad guys, right? That’s how you sleep at night?”
His jaw ticks. Just once. Bullseye.
“I didn’t sleep before,” he says flatly. “Killing didn’t change that.”
There’s something final in his voice—dead and buried, like whatever mercy he had left was stripped from him years ago. And yet, he’s still standing here. Still watching me like I’m the one holding the knife.
“You could’ve killed me,” I say. “So why didn’t you?”
“Don’t tempt me.”
It’s not a threat. It’s a confession. Quiet. Fractured. Honest.
That should terrify me. Maybe it does. But all I feel is a strange stillness in my chest. Like whatever fear I had is curled up in the corner, unafraid of him.
“Do you want me dead?” I ask.
His eyes flick over my face, unreadable.
“I could kill you at any point,” he says.
I let out a sharp breath. “That doesn’t answer my question.”
“Well, I haven’t killed you…yet.”
“That’s supposed to comfort me?”
“No,” he says, and this time his voice is low and lethal. “It’s supposed to remind you that you're still alive because I allow it. Don’t mistake that for safety.”
I feel the words like a collar tightening around my throat. But I don’t look away. If I give him fear, he’ll use it against me. So I give him my fury instead.
“Then stop dancing around it and just fucking do it.”
The silence that follows feels like standing on the edge of a cliff, waiting to see if the wind’s going to push you or hold you down.
Jayson exhales, but it’s not relief—it’s restraint.
“You think you want to die,” he says slowly, “but you don’t. You just want someone else to make the decision so you don’t have to carry the weight of surviving.”
His words gut me. Because they’re true. And I hate that he can see it. He just can’t see the reasons why I’ve contemplated ending it all so many times before.
He straightens, stepping back from the bars just enough to give me air—but not enough to mean I’m free. He doesn’t move right away. Just stands there, watching me with that predator’s stillness, like he’s waiting for a crack to show. A flinch. A sob. Anything.
But I give him nothing. I’ve given more than enough just by being here. And maybe that’s what gets to him.
“You know, your reaction to your father’s death has been…unusual. Most people scream,” he says after a beat. His voice is quieter now, but it cuts cleaner. “They cry. They beg. You haven’t even blinked.”
I meet his eyes, dead on. My silence dares him to keep going. He does.
“I killed your father in front of you. Shot him point-blank. And you just stood there.” He tilts his head slightly, eyes narrowing. “You haven’t shed a single tear.”
I swallow, but say nothing .
“Not even one?” he asks, more to himself than to me. “No screaming. No breakdown. Not even a goddamn twitch.”
His tone isn’t cruel—it’s curious. Like he’s trying to solve a puzzle he didn’t expect to find under all the blood.
“You’re not scared of me,” he murmurs, eyes narrowing. “But you should be. You really should be.”
Still, I don’t look away. Because what the hell do you say to that? Sorry I didn ’ t react the way you wanted me to while you painted the walls with my father ’ s blood? Sorry the grief didn ’ t perform on command?
He lets out a breath through his nose, gaze tightening as if my silence is more unsettling than any scream could’ve been. And maybe it is. Because monsters expect fear. But quiet?
Quiet makes them wonder what you’re hiding.
“When can I shower?” I ask, my voice sharper than intended.
I glance down, grimacing at the state of myself. My clothes are stiff with dried mud, crusted at the seams, clinging to my skin like punishment. Every movement makes them chafe—itchy, heavy, disgusting. The damp fabric clings to places it shouldn’t, and the smell… God, the smell.
Like soil and sweat and fear. A scent you only notice when it’s dried into you.
I shift my weight, trying not to wince as the fabric pulls across bruised skin. “I feel like I’ve been buried alive,” I mutter.
It’s not just discomfort. It’s suffocating. And somehow, being this filthy—this uncared for —makes me feel even more like a prisoner.
Stripped of dignity. Rendered helpless. Covered in the earth’s muck. Wearing the last few hours like a second skin I can’t peel off.
I look up to meet his eyes.
“Seriously. I need to get this off me.”