Chapter 12 Bed, Bugs, and Other Terrifying Things
TWELVE
BED, BUGS, AND OTHER TERRIFYING THINGS
LARK
I did not mean to say love.
It just… slipped.
One second I was ranting about patch notes and feelings and murder bounties, the next I dropped the L-word like I was casually commenting on the weather.
I love you because—
Nope. We are not rerunning that audio file. Delete. Alt+F4. Yeet it into the void.
Except I can’t, because it happened in the real world where there is no undo button and Knight Hayes looked at me like I’d just knocked a wall out of his chest.
And then he said he believed me.
Which is somehow even worse.
Hours later, my brain is still replaying it on loop as the sky outside the cabin goes from dusty pink to deep indigo. The trees become silhouettes. The forest noise grows louder. Crickets. Wind. The occasional distant crack of a branch.
We’ve done our night check-in with Arrow and the gang. No big updates. Dean’s team is still chewing on Cathedral. ALFA07/Helios is still a slippery bastard with too many proxies and not enough mistakes.
So we wait.
Again.
The worst.
Knight kills the light over the table, leaving just the small lamp by the couch. It throws a warm puddle across the worn rug, makes the tiny cabin feel almost cozy if I ignore the potential for armed intruders.
I hover in the hallway like a ghost that doesn’t know where to haunt.
Knight’s in the kitchen, rinsing our mugs. His shoulders look broader in the low light, his t-shirt clinging to the line of his back. He moves with this quiet economy now, a little more relaxed than this morning but still coiled underneath like he’s never entirely off.
My heart does a traitorous little flutter.
You told him you love him.
I press my palms against the doorframe and rest my forehead there, silently screaming into the wood.
I didn’t mean to.
That’s a lie.
I did.
I’ve meant to for years.
I just didn’t mean to actually say it.
“Lark?” Knight’s voice cuts through my spiral. “You dying over there?”
“Just doing some light existential panicking,” I call back. “It’s fine.”
He appears at the end of the hall, dish towel slung over one shoulder, eyes scanning my face like he’s assessing damage.
“You okay?” he asks quietly.
God, I’m so tired of that question being complicated.
“I will be,” I say. “Once we get some sleep and no one tries to kill us today.”
“High bar,” he says dryly.
He leans a shoulder against the wall across from me, close enough that I can smell soap and coffee and something that’s just him.
His gaze dips to my mouth.
My stomach flips.
We stand there for a long, stretched-out moment, the air between us thick with everything we said earlier and all the things we didn’t.
Finally, he clears his throat. “We should try to get some rest. I’ll take the couch again.”
The couch that shrank him by a foot and tried to murder his spine last night.
The idea of him out here, alone, while I’m down that hallway by myself makes my skin prickle.
“Or,” I blurt, “you could… not?”
He blinks. “Not what?”
“Not take the couch.” My cheeks go hot, but I push through the embarrassment. “You could, you know. Sleep… in the bed. With me.”
I say it fast. Like ripping off a Band-Aid.
His whole body goes still.
I rush to clarify. “Not like that. I mean—okay, not not like that, but that’s not what I’m asking. I just… I didn’t like being down there alone. And I know I talk big about not being scared, and I meant what I said about using all the Krav Maga if someone comes through that door, but—”
“Lark.” His voice is gentle but firm. “Breathe.”
I drag in a breath.
He studies me, expression softening. “You’re scared,” he says.
“A little,” I admit. “Off and on. It comes in waves. I keep seeing the bounty text over your face. Over mine. Feels like if I close my eyes for too long, someone’s going to kick that door in and…” I trail off, swallowing.
He pushes off the wall, stepping closer. His hand comes up slowly, giving me time to flinch away if I want to. I don’t. He rests his fingers lightly against my forearm. “You want me there,” he says. “So you feel safe.”
“Yes.”
“You sure that’s all this is?” he asks quietly.
I meet his eyes.
Am I sure?
No.
But safety is the root of it. The tree that’s grown on top is… everything else.
“I’m not asking you to do anything you don’t want to,” I say, voice softer. “No… extra. Just you, in the bed, next to me, so if I wake up at three a.m. and my brain decides to run a worst-case scenario marathon, you can say something grumpy and ridiculous and remind me we’re not dead yet.”
His mouth twitches. “That’s a lot of responsibility for one grumpy ridiculous man,” he says.
“You’re good at it.”
He looks down, jaw working, like he’s fighting with himself. “I won’t touch you,” he says finally. The words sound like they hurt coming out. “If I sleep there. I’ll stay on my side. You won’t have to worry about me crossing any lines.”
“That’s not why I want you there,” I say, the truth bursting out before I can tame it.
“I mean, yes, okay, physical proximity to your body is not exactly a hardship, but that’s not the point.
I want you there because when you’re near, I feel…
anchored. Like the world can scream at us all it wants and we’ll just… flip it off together.”
His eyes flick up to mine.
Something in them cracks open.
“Okay,” he says hoarsely. “I’ll stay.”
Relief rushes through me, tinged with nerves. “Cool,” I say, aiming for casual and landing somewhere in the vicinity of squeaky. “Great. Awesome. Bed-sharing for safety. Very adult.”
He huffs out a quiet laugh. “You’re adorably bad at pretending this is nothing.”
“Excuse you, I’m excellent at pretending things.”
“I’ve noticed,” he says softly.
Heat rises in my chest.
“Give me five minutes,” I manage. “I want to… uh… teeth. And face. And pajamas. Things.”
He nods, stepping back just enough to let me squeeze by down the hall.
I do not sprint.
I walk.
Quickly.
Once I’m in the bedroom, I close the door and press my back against it, staring into the dim room.
The bed looks bigger than it did last night.
More loaded.
Less like a piece of furniture and more like a question I’m about to answer.
I move through my mini routine with more focus than it deserves. Toothbrush. Face wash. Change into sleep shorts and a soft, oversized t-shirt I grabbed from the dresser. It’s got the Maddox Security logo on the back.
When I’m done, I stand there for a long beat, looking at myself in the small mirror above the dresser.
Hair: chaotic but salvageable.
Face: flushed from scrubbing and panic.
Eyes: too bright.
“You’re okay,” I tell my reflection quietly. “You’re allowed to want this and still be scared. Both can be true.”
I’m not sure if I’m talking about the bounty or the boy.
Probably both.
I kill the light and crawl into the bed, sliding under the covers. The sheets are cool against my legs. The mattress dips just enough under my weight.
My heart hammers as I lie there staring at the ceiling.
I hear Knight in the bathroom—water running, the quiet scrape of the toothbrush, door opening, closing.
His footsteps down the hall are soft but somehow louder than anything.
The bedroom door creaks open.
He pauses on the threshold.
Even in the dark, I can feel his hesitation.
“It’s fine,” I say into the quiet. “I don’t bite in my sleep.”
“You bite when you’re awake,” he mutters.
“Accurate.”
The mattress dips as he sits on the edge of the bed, then lowers himself down carefully. The covers rustle. He shifts, settling on his back, every movement deliberate, like he’s afraid the bed might explode if he’s not gentle enough.
He’s close.
Not touching.
But close.
In the silence, I can hear everything: his breathing, a little uneven and the rustle of fabric as he folds his arms over his chest, even the creak of the bed frame as our combined weight settles.
For a long moment, we just lie there.
The room smells like laundry detergent and pine and Knight.
My nerves buzz.
“On a scale of one to panic,” he says quietly, “where’s your anxiety right now?”
I stare at the dark. “Like… a six. Maybe seven.”
He hums. “What can I do to drop it two points?”
“Besides reprogram my brain chemistry?”
“I left my neuromancer hat at home,” he says. “You get the low-tech version.”
“Talk to me,” I say, surprising myself. “About anything. Distract me.”
He thinks for a second.
“I fixed the front door lock while you were in the shower,” he says. “It sticks less now. And I rigged a little chime with a string and a spoon, so if someone tries it from the outside, it’ll make noise.”
Warmth curls under my ribs. “Of course you did.”
“There’s a loose floorboard in the living room,” he continues. “I reinforced the window latches. The back one had a faulty catch, so I swapped it with the one from the bathroom. And I moved your shoes so you won’t stub your toe if you have to run.”
I blink into the dark.
He says it like he’s listing debugging updates. Casual. Efficient.
Every item is a small, quiet I thought about you.
“Any other patch notes?” I ask softly.
“I keep thinking about how to get you out of this,” he admits. “Even if they never pull the bounty, even if we never find Helios. I keep replaying every move we made that led to this point, wondering where I could’ve misstepped less.”
Pain pricks.
“Knight,” I whisper, turning my head toward him. “This isn’t your fault.”
“I keep saying that to myself,” he says. “My brain doesn’t believe me yet.”
“Well, your brain can get in line behind mine,” I say. “Because mine’s very sure I chose this. I blackmailed my way into your operations, remember? You didn’t recruit me. I walked in and kicked the door down.”
He huffs a small laugh. “Yeah. That was… aggressively you.”
“And I’d do it again,” I add. “Even knowing this is where we’d end up.”
He’s quiet.
“So maybe,” I say, “stop treating me like I’m some innocent bystander you accidentally dragged into the Matrix.”
“You’re not innocent,” he says.
I roll my eyes. “Rude.”