Charlie
Constantine rushes in wearing an untucked shirt and trousers like he dressed while running. His hair is messy, his expression wild, and he takes in the room in one sweeping glance.
Me, shaking behind Nikolaus.
The men.
And the gun pointed at them.
“Christ,” Constantine snaps. “Niko!”
Nikolaus does not lower the gun. Constantine moves anyway.
I don’t know how anyone can move toward Nikolaus when he looks like that, but Constantine does. He steps into the space between Nikolaus and the guards with both hands raised, not scared exactly, but careful. Very, very careful.
“Put it down,” he says.
Nikolaus answers, “óchi. íne ídi nekroí.” No. They’re already dead.
Constantine replies, fast and harsh, “Sképsou ton Charlie. Thélis na se dei na tous skotónis? Min to kánis, Niko. Sképsou kathará.” Think about Charlie. Do you want him to see you kill them? Don’t do it, Niko. Think clearly.
I don’t understand any of it. None of it. Their voices overlap, snapping back and forth, and I cower there behind Nikolaus, clutching the robe closed with both hands, shivering so hard my teeth chatter even though the suite is warm.
The guards do not move.
Nikolaus looks like he might shoot through Constantine to get to them.
Constantine seems aware of this and still does not step aside. “Niko,” he says again, this time in English, voice lower. “Look at him.”
Nikolaus’s shoulders rise and fall once.
“Look at Charlie,” Constantine tells him.
Something about hearing my name makes me flinch.
Nikolaus turns his head slightly, not enough to take his eyes entirely off the guards, but enough to see me.
I don’t know what my face looks like.
I don’t want to know.
But whatever he sees makes some of the terrible stillness in him crack.
I am shaking so badly I can barely stay upright when the gun lowers by an inch.
Constantine takes the opening and steps closer, murmuring something I don’t understand, one hand closing around Nikolaus’s wrist. Not forcing, but guiding. It’s insane to me that anyone can touch him right now and keep their hand afterward.
For one second, Nikolaus resists, but then he takes a deep, rough breath and lets Constantine push the gun down.
Not away.
Not completely.
But down.
Constantine immediately looks at the guards and says something that sounds like an order, a threat, and a prayer all at once. The men obey without hesitation. They back toward the door, faces stark white, and leave the suite so quickly it almost feels like they disappear.
After the door closes behind them, my breath comes back in a rush that is too fast, too shallow, and too loud. I make a sound I hate, a high, thin wheeze, and squeeze my eyes shut so hard it hurts.
Nikolaus turns fully then.
The gun is no longer in his hand. I don’t know where it went. Constantine must have taken it. Or maybe Nikolaus set it down. I don’t know. I don’t care. I can’t stop staring at his hands.
Big hands.
Empty hands.
“Oh, baby, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry,” he rasps.
I shake my head.
My mouth opens, but nothing comes out.
I want to say, I’m sorry.
I want to beg him, please don’t kill me.
I want to say, I want to go home.
I want to say, you said you weren’t going to hurt me, and they touched me, and I couldn’t breathe, and I thought I was going to die, and why are you mad at them if you’re the reason they were there?
But all of that is too much. So I just sit there, clutching the robe closed, trying to breathe through a throat that feels smaller than it should.
Constantine moves first.
He steps around Nikolaus carefully, never getting fully between us. His eyes are on me now, and there is something different in them than before. Not pity. I hate pity. But maybe apology. Maybe calculation with a little regret mixed in.
“Charlie,” he says, voice calm. “Are you okay?”
I shake my head weakly, my vision starting to blur from all the tears I hadn’t let fall until just now.
“Okay,” he answers, crouching down into a squat. “Are you hurt at all?”
My eyes dart to Nikolaus, and I give a tiny nod.
Constantine follows the look, eyes narrowing, and asks, “Did Niko hurt you?”
A muscle in Nikolaus’s jaw pops at the question.
I shake my head.
Constantine lets out a small sigh of relief. “Okay. Did the guards hurt you?”
I swallow, then give him a shallow nod. Nikolaus curses in the background.
“I’m sorry, Charlie. They weren’t meant to hurt you,” Constantine says.
I stare at him because I don’t understand what he means by that.
My fingers tighten around the robe, which keeps wanting to fall open no matter how hard I clutch it closed.
My hoodie is twisted around one shoulder, the sleeves bunched wrong, the hem riding up over the thick belt of the robe.
I feel ridiculous and exposed and humiliated in a way that makes my skin crawl, like even with the robe closed again, they’ve already seen too much.
Nikolaus makes another rough sound behind Constantine, and though I know it’s not at me, it still leaves me confused.
“I tried to leave,” I whisper, staring at the floor and fidgeting until the quiet is broken and my eyes flick up.
“We know,” Constantine answers, now looking slightly confused himself.
I look cautiously between him and Nikolaus, waiting for the part where they stop acting like this is about me being hurt and start being angry because I did something wrong. Because I did. I know I did. I was the one who snuck out of bed. I was the one who opened the door.
“I tried to run away,” I clarify, in case they both missed that very important detail during all the yelling and gun-pointing and almost-murder.
Nikolaus’s face tightens, and I flinch back, thinking I just reminded him that he should be angry at me.
But then he comes closer and crouches in front of me, slow enough that I can see the movement coming, one knee settling against the floor. “We know, baby.”
My throat works. “Then why are you sorry?”
His expression does something I can’t read.
“Niko…” Constantine murmurs, but Nikolaus ignores him.
“I knew there was a chance you would try,” Nikolaus says. “That is why the guards were there. They were supposed to stop you from leaving, walk you back into the suite, and alert me.”
“But I was leaving,” I say again, smaller this time.
“Yes.”
“So they stopped me.”
“Yes.”
“Then…” I lift my eyes, baffled and exhausted and so close to crying again that my vision is already shimmering. “Then why does everyone keep sounding like I’m the one who needs an apology?”
Nikolaus goes very still. Constantine’s expression softens around the edges, and I hate that too. I hate how hard it is to hate him when he looks at me like that, with his shirt rumpled and his hair messy and his face too tired to be cruel.
“Because you are,” Constantine says.
I shake my head vehemently. “No, I’m not.”
“Charlie—”
“No. No, I’m not. I tried to leave. I wasn’t supposed to.
I know that.” My voice starts shaking. My whole body is shaking, actually, the adrenaline leaving me in miserable little waves.
“I messed up. I screamed and fought them, and I—I made Nikolaus almost—” My gaze snaps unwillingly toward the place where the gun had been, and I can’t finish the sentence. “I made everything worse.”
I feel tired, so horribly tired, like all my bones have been scooped out and replaced with wet paper.
“Sweetheart, you’re not listening,” Nikolaus says gently but firmly.
“I expected you to try to leave. It would’ve been stupid of me not to.
It was my responsibility to keep you safe, and I failed.
The only people who messed up are those two men and me.
I should’ve done more to ensure they wouldn’t hurt you, and you deserve my apologies for that. ”
“So you’re not mad?” I whisper.
Nikolaus looks at me for a long second. “Oh, I am furious.”
My heart stops.
Then his gaze cuts toward the door. “But not with you.”
A stupid, terrible warmth blooms in my chest, and I hate it.
I hate it so much I almost want to claw it out.
Because it should not make me feel better that the man who kidnapped me is angry at the men who scared me. It should not make some stupid little piece of me look at his huge body between me and the door and feel protected.
He is the danger. He is the reason I am here. He is the reason there were guards in the hallway. He is the reason I am sitting on the floor in a hotel robe at four in the morning with my heart still trying to beat its way out of my chest.
But the guards are gone because of him. The hand over my mouth is gone because of him. And no one is touching me right now because he told them not to.
My brain holds those facts up side by side and makes something ugly and confusing out of them.
Something that whispers that if I were closer to Nikolaus, other men wouldn’t be able to grab me like that.
That if I were tucked against his chest, hidden behind all that size and hair and rage, nobody would ever be brave enough to try and hurt me.
That thought scares me, so I bite down on the inside of my cheek until the sting gives me something else to focus on.
Constantine clears his throat, drawing my attention back to him. “Do you think you can go back to sleep?”
The question is so normal it feels insane.
Sleep.
Like I can just go back to bed after that. Like I can crawl under the blankets, close my eyes, and trust the door to stay shut, trust the guards not to come back, and trust Nikolaus not to change his mind and decide I need to be punished after all.
My mouth opens, but nothing comes out.
Nikolaus’s gaze stays on me, heavy and focused. “Charlie?”
I shake my head sadly.
“All right,” he announces, “then we’ll just start the day now.”
I blink at him. “What?”
“Our car is scheduled in two hours,” he says, as if my failed escape attempt and mental breakdown have simply become an adjustment to his morning itinerary. “There is no point forcing you back into bed if your body won’t allow it. We’ll get you dressed, fed, medicated, and to the plane.”