26. Justin
JUSTIN
Iwatch her as she drifts in and out of sleep. She’s so exhausted that her body feels like it needs the rest.
I haven’t moved from her side. I sat beside her bed and watched her sleep through the night-or what was remaining of it-then I watched as her eyes fluttered up in the morning, and then as she cried herself back to sleep a little while ago.
There’s still blood under my nails, dark and dry now, a quiet reminder of what I did to a man who doesn’t deserve my mercy. I’ll scrub it away later. For now, it stays—proof of what happened last night, a quiet reminder in the aftermath of the violence I gladly carried for her. Gladly.
Somewhere just before midday, her eyes flutter open.
A small crease forms between her brows, confusion knitting as she orients herself. She looks smaller in sleep, softer—nothing like the woman who fought for air in her own bedroom hours ago.
“You’re still here.”
Her voice is rough, sleep-worn. Soft and broken.
I say nothing. Because the truth is simple and dangerous: I can’t stop watching her breathe.
She pushes herself upright, hair a mess, blanket slipping off one shoulder.
The space between us is barely anything—just air, just the ghosts of things neither of us has voiced.
Her eyes track over me slowly, carefully, like she’s taking inventory.
The cuts on my knuckles. The bruising already blooming.
The faint tremor in my hands I haven’t quite managed to still.
The kind of look that strips the meticulously constructed walls I’ve built around myself.
“How long did I sleep?” she whispers.
“You need your rest.”
“I need to go home, Justin.”
“I won’t let anything touch you again,” I say. My voice comes out rough. Used up.
She swings her legs off the bed. Her bare feet meet the cold stone floor, and something in my chest tightens at the sight of it—how human it is, how fragile. The lamplight catches a flash of the pale scar at her ankle, uneven and old, and the thought comes unbidden, sharp enough to hurt.
She’s mine to protect.
It’s a dangerous thought. One I don’t let myself touch too often.
“Justin.” She says my name like she’s testing it, steadier now. Curious. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
I say nothing, because she’s standing now, because she’s close enough that I can smell her in the quiet aftermath of her survival.
The air shifts.
Not dramatically like it does in stories. This is more subtle. Just two people who’ve been running from different kinds of violence, suddenly standing still. The room holds its breath.
She looks at me once, searching for confirmation that this moment exists. Then she closes the distance between us.
The kiss is sharp, committed, almost bruising.
There’s nothing delicate or careful about it.
It’s a live wire meeting a fuse. Her fingers curl into my collar, grounding, claiming.
My jaw tightens under her palm. For a heartbeat, neither of us moves, stunned by the relief of it.
By the fact that we’re both still here. Still breathing the same ruined air.
I try to stop. I should stop.
I tell myself I’m poison. That anything I touch becomes part of my ledger. Another mark I’ll carry.
But she kisses me again—harder this time, desperate in a way that feels like survival—and the control I’ve been clinging to all night starts to fracture.
My hands find her shoulders, then her waist. It’s not gentle, but it’s reverent.
It’s the ache of two people who have forgotten softness and are trying to remember how it feels.
When I pull back, it’s abrupt. Violent in its restraint.
Her breath catches. My hands hover in the space she was, fingers trembling with everything I didn’t do.
I could tell myself I stopped because I don’t care. But that would be a lie.
I stopped because she deserves choices that aren’t a result of shock and fear. Because she deserves a moment that isn’t borrowed from chaos. Because respect—real respect—is the one thing I still know how to give without hesitation.
Her eyes search my face, flushed, bright, too alive for what she’s survived.
“Why—” she starts.
“Because you’re hurt,” I say quietly, the words rough around the edges. “And because you’re confused. You can’t make decisions like this right now.”
She tilts her head, studying me the way people do when they’ve already decided you’re lying—to yourself, if no one else.
“What are you so afraid of?” she asks.
She doesn’t blink.
Christ.
“A lot,” I murmur. “None of it your concern.”
A faint, infuriating smirk curves her mouth, before her gaze sharpens.
“Are you a dangerous man, Justin Collins?”
I don’t hesitate. “I’m not the real danger. I’m the devil you know.”
She laughs—soft, genuine—and the sound slices through me like it knows exactly where to land.
I feel it in my ribs, in the place I keep things locked down.
I shouldn’t be enjoying this. She was almost taken from this world hours ago, and I’m still replaying every version of what could’ve happened if I’d been seconds later.
“For once…” her voice is quieter now, “I’m glad you were watching me.”
Something flickers in her eyes—gratitude, raw and unguarded.
“Trouble seems to find you no matter where you go,” I say, because I need the distance the words give me.
Her breath stutters. Just once. She hates that I’m right.
She swallows, throat tight, but she doesn’t look away.
I know exactly where her mind goes—to the original fracture, the moment everything went wrong.
Trouble found her when she was twelve. It sank its teeth into her then, and it never let go.
She steps closer. Just enough that the air between us thins to nothing. Her fingertips brush mine, barely there, but it’s enough.
God help me.
“I’m not afraid of you,” she whispers.
“You should be.”
“Maybe. But for some reason, I’m not.”
Her warmth hits me like impact. She doesn’t want danger. What she leans toward—what she trusts without saying it—is the safety she feels when I’m here. The protection she refuses to name but doesn’t deny.
“Rowan,” I warn, my voice scraping out of me.
Heat coils where her skin grazes mine. I breathe out hard, fighting the instinct to pull her closer instead of pushing her back.
“You’re tempting me,” I warn. “Be careful, or I’ll stop pretending I’m the good guy in this story.”
Her smile is small. Knowing. Beautiful in a way that should scare me.
“Since when were you the good guy?”
Fuck.