Chapter Seventeen
~ Quiad ~
I woke with my heart firing like a nail gun, arms locked around empty air, the bed cold where it should have been warm.
For one paralyzed second, I was back in the nightmare: Levi gone, vanished between the ticks of a clock, every scream sucked out of my throat by the crushing dark.
It was always the same. Him slipping away, me powerless, the aftermath a churn of blood and loss.
Some nights it was a car crash, the way it’d almost happened for real.
Some nights it was those men in the alley, their faces a blur but their fists landing sharp, the sound of Levi's body breaking echoing through me long after I woke up.
Tonight it was nothing but that feeling—absence, loss—amplified to a frequency that drowned out everything else.
I wrenched myself upright, vision swimming, breath clawing in and out of my chest so loud it felt like an alarm. My hands went to the sheet, fisting it, then searching, frantic, across the battered mattress. I had to feel him—skin, bone, proof he hadn’t slipped out of existence while I slept.
There. On the far edge of the bed, back to me, spine drawn up in a wary question mark. He was real. He was here.
The relief cut my legs out, and I sagged forward, forehead pressed to his bare shoulder blade, just letting the heat of him bleed into me. I wrapped both arms around his waist and squeezed until the panic had to give way or shatter me for good.
Levi didn’t startle. He didn’t flinch. Just a small, sleepy noise, and then he rolled over, blue eyes blinking up at me in the half-dark, face a mess of fading bruise and stubborn calm.
He reached for me, fingers catching at the front of my t-shirt, and tugged me down until our noses almost touched. “Quiad?” he whispered, the sound sweet and raw with sleep.
I couldn’t answer. If I opened my mouth, the terror would come pouring out, and I’d never get the taste out again.
I buried my face in his hair, breathing him in—shampoo, sweat, the clean ozone smell that always clung to him after a shower.
I held there, anchored by the smell, the feel of his pulse fluttering under my lips.
His hands slid up my back, one palm settling on the scar at the base of my skull.
He stroked it, gentle, like he knew exactly how the pieces fit and how easy it would be to knock them loose.
The other hand went to my forearm, tracing lazy circles on the inside, the same place he always drew when he wanted to calm me down.
He didn’t ask what the dream was. He never did. He just held me, fingers drawing light patterns that reminded me I was real, that he was real, that the world was still there outside these walls.
I let myself breathe him in, slower each time, until the shakes went away.
“Same dream?” he said, voice softer than the moonlight leaking through the slats.
I nodded against his neck, jaw tight enough to crack.
He made a sound—almost a laugh, but not quite. “It’s over,” he said, thumb pressing into the meat of my shoulder. “You’re here. I’m here.”
I wanted to tell him that wasn’t enough, that the fear was a poison that never fully faded, that I could patch the house a hundred times and it’d never stop the nightmares. But I didn’t. Instead, I just pulled him closer, pressed my mouth to the top of his head, and hoped it would be enough.
Levi shifted, wincing at the movement—his ribs were still a canvas of angry purple, a map of everywhere they’d hurt him. He let out a slow hiss, then settled his weight against my chest, the soft weight of his hair tickling my chin. For a long minute, neither of us moved.
I traced a line down his spine, feeling each bump and notch. He shivered, then let out a breath I hadn’t known he was holding. “Don’t ever leave the bed like that,” I said, my voice barely above a grunt.
He grinned, even with the split in his lip. “Didn’t want to wake you. You were sleeping for once.”
“Doesn’t matter,” I said. “You leave, I wake up.”
He nodded, the smile fading, replaced by something older and sadder. “I know,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
I shook my head, fingers twisting in his hair, needing the pull of it to keep the world from tilting. He was here. He was mine. I had to believe it.
We stayed like that, tangled together, until the sweat dried on my skin and the sheets cooled beneath us.
I could feel his heart, beating steady now, thumping a counterpoint to my own.
With every beat, the nightmare faded, replaced by the solid comfort of his body, the clean line of his collarbone, the slow, familiar rhythm of his breath.
The moon shifted, painting silver bands across the battered wall. I watched the light crawl up Levi’s shoulder, watched the blue of his eyes go dark as he drifted back toward sleep.
“You okay?” he asked, voice barely there.
I nodded again, but this time it felt closer to the truth.
He reached up, thumb tracing the scar on my jaw, the one he’d kissed a thousand times. “Go back to sleep,” he whispered. “I’m not going anywhere.”
I believed him. I had to. I let the dark have me, as long as he was there to hold on to. And for a few precious hours, the world stayed quiet.
The night didn’t let go easily. It stuck, cloying, pressing into every crack in the old walls and every space between our bodies.
I lay there, pretending sleep would come, but my brain wouldn’t let me have it.
I kept hearing the dream on repeat, the way Levi’s voice had faded in that darkness, the way my own hands felt empty after clawing at nothing.
I must have squeezed him too tight, because he shifted in my arms, a hiss leaking through his teeth when his ribs caught on the motion. He tried to hide it—always did—but I felt every shudder in his breath. He rolled onto his back, left arm flopping over his head, hair splayed wild on the pillow.
We didn’t speak for a minute. Just listened to the silence, thick and electric. The moon had sunk lower, and the room was lit only by the LED blink of my phone on the nightstand.
Levi broke the standoff, voice small but sharp. “You’re doing the thing again.”
“What thing?” I said, though I knew.
He turned to face me, his face a mess of old bruise and fresh resolve. “The thing where you wall up, like if you don’t talk about it, it’ll just go away.”
I snorted, but it came out brittle. “Some things should go away.”
He propped himself up on one elbow, eyes level with mine. “Talk to me,” he said, simple as a command.
I wanted to. I didn’t know how. I’d spent years learning to let the worst of me out only in controlled doses—at the range, in the shop, in the kind of fight where everything was clear and simple.
This was neither.
Instead, I reached for his face, thumbing the edge of his split lip, the swelling that had gone greenish yellow under his eye. My calloused fingers looked brutal next to the delicate skin, but he didn’t pull away. I cupped his cheek, and my hand shook, just barely.
He caught the tremor, smiled, and covered my hand with his own. “You’re allowed to be scared, you know,” he said.
That gutted me. I felt the words in my chest, like a hand reaching through my ribcage and squeezing until I saw stars.
“I can’t lose you,” I said, the words raw and low and not at all how I’d meant them to sound. “I can’t.”
Levi’s hand drifted up, palm to my jaw, thumb tracing the line of my beard. “But you didn’t,” he said. “You found me. You always find me.”
He said it so matter-of-fact, like it was a law of physics. I looked at him, at the mouth that had just a week ago been smiling at our wedding, at the eyes that had shone brighter than anything the courthouse could offer.
I swallowed, but it scraped all the way down.
“It doesn’t go away,” I said. “The fear. The anger. The part of me that wants to destroy the whole world just so you’ll be safe.
” I pressed my thumb gently into the bruise on his cheek, and he leaned into it, unflinching.
“When I saw them hurting you, something broke inside me, Sunshine. I wanted to kill them. I still do.”
The confession sat in the air, heavy and real. I expected him to shrink away, to judge me, to realize what kind of monster he’d signed up for.
But Levi just smiled, slow and sly, the way he always did when he caught me off guard.
He scooted closer, body lining up against mine, hip to thigh.
“I know,” he said. “And that should probably scare me, but it doesn’t.
” He leaned in, nose to nose, the heat of his breath melting the last of the chill. “It makes me feel safe.”
I let out a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding. “You’re not supposed to encourage it.”
He shrugged, like it was nothing. “It’s not encouragement. It’s honesty. If you weren’t a little bit terrifying, you wouldn’t be you.”
I grinned, and it hurt in a good way. “You’re not scared of anything, are you?”
He rolled his eyes. “I just got my ass kicked by a middle-aged man in a rental suit. You’re the only thing in this room I want close to me.”
I reached down, pulled him flush against my chest. He went without resistance, curling into the curve of my body like we were designed that way. My hands found his back, fingers spreading wide across the bandage, and I felt the steady rise and fall of his breath.
For a second, the urge to say something sappy—something about how I didn’t deserve him, how he was my home, how I’d kill for him and die for him and every cliché the movies ever tried to sell—rose up and threatened to break free.
But I didn’t say any of it. Instead, I pressed my mouth to the crown of his head, breathing him in, letting the smell of his shampoo and the warmth of his skin root me to the earth.
He made a sound—a low, contented hum—and the vibration of it rumbled through my chest.
“I’d burn the world for you,” I said, voice gone to gravel.
He grinned, even with the split lip. “Good. I like it when you get possessive.”
“Careful. I might start thinking you want to be owned.”
“Maybe I do,” he whispered. “Maybe that’s the point.” He pulled me down until our foreheads touched, the air between us electric. “Promise me,” he said. “Promise you’ll never let them win. Even when I’m an idiot and walk into trouble.”
I squeezed him tighter. “That’s a stupid promise.”
He laughed, the motion making both of us wince. “It’s what you signed up for.”
I nodded, not trusting myself to speak.
He turned his head, lips ghosting along my collarbone. “You know what I think?” he said, words slurring a little from the meds, or the exhaustion, or both.
“What?”
He propped his chin on my chest, looking up at me with those impossible blue eyes. “I think we’re not broken. We’re just…built different. Like a fence after a storm. Might look beat up, but it’ll hold.”
I barked a laugh, and the sound felt real for the first time all night. “You and your metaphors.”
He grinned. “They’re good metaphors. You should try one sometime.”
I let my hand drift down his back, settling on the curve of his hip. I could feel the ridge of bone, the evidence of too many weeks spent anxious and underfed. “Maybe I will. When you’re less concussed.”
He rolled his eyes, but the smile didn’t leave his lips. “Deal.”
We lay there, neither of us talking, just listening to the house creak and the wind slide over the roof. I traced the edge of a bruise on his shoulder, memorizing the shape so I could watch it fade. He closed his eyes, lashes brushing my skin, his breath warm on my neck.
After a while, he spoke. “Sometimes I wonder if I’m broken, for loving you like this.”
“You’re not broken.” I meant it. “You’re the only thing that works right in my life.”
He laughed, then kissed me, gentle and slow, like we had all the time in the world. I stared at the ceiling, watching the shadows crawl across the plaster, and felt the tension bleed out of my body one muscle at a time.
Eventually, Levi’s breathing slowed, the little hitches evening out as he drifted toward sleep.
He clung to me, fingers curled tight in the fabric of my shirt, and I knew that even if the nightmares came back, even if the world tried to take him from me again, I’d do whatever it took to keep him safe.
Even if it meant becoming the monster everyone already thought I was. I didn’t care. He was mine and I was never letting go.