Chapter 30
Iwas still holding his hand.
I hadn’t meant to. Hadn’t even realized it until we reached the car and I reached for the door handle, only to find my fingers tangled in his.
I pulled away quickly. Too quickly. Dropped his hand like it had burned me.
The door handle didn’t move.
Locked.
“Unlock the car.” I didn’t turn around. Just tried the handle again. Nothing.
“Cassian—”
“No.”
My jaw tightened. I turned to face him. His eyes were on mine. Sad, intent, searching my face like he was looking for something I didn’t know I was hiding.
“Give me the keys, then.”
He kept staring. Then, slowly, he shook his head.
I nodded, accepting. “Fine. I’ll get a cab.”
I turned to walk away, but his hand caught mine before I’d taken two steps. He pulled me back. “Are you going to the hospital?”
I glared at him, the exhaustion, fear and rage of the last hours sharpening my voice. “You’re not unlocking the door and you’re not giving me the keys, so it’s really not your business where I’m going, is it?”
I tried to pull my hand free. He held on. Drew me closer instead.
“Where are you going?” His voice had softened, stripped of everything but the question.
I looked up, took a deep breath that didn’t help at all, and met his eyes.
“You think Michael’s going to get locked up just like that?
” My voice was flat, hard. “No. Someone needs to put him there.” I stepped closer, the words coming faster.
“I want to remove that fucking victory glint from his eyes. I want him to feel what Naija felt. Locked in that room, not knowing if she was going to make it out.” I pulled my hand from his and started walking.
“For that to happen, I need to go to work.”
His footsteps followed immediately. “We need to go back to the hospital. You need to see Naija.”
I didn’t stop. Didn’t slow. “I’ll see her when she’s back at work.”
“You need to see her now.” His voice was urgent, pleading. “She needs you there.”
“She doesn’t need me.” The words came out sharper than I intended. “Felicity is there. So are the others. She has plenty of people. She doesn’t need me.”
Cassian moved in front of me, blocking my path. I stopped just short of colliding with him.
“Naija needs you.” His voice was soft but insistent. “She wants you there. She’s probably asking for you right now. And you need to see her too, so let’s just—”
“No.” I tried to step around him.
He moved with me. Blocking.
“Alessia.”
“No.” I tried the other side. He was there again.
“Alessia, please—”
“I left!”
The words tore out of me, raw and ragged. I stopped trying to move. Stopped trying to escape. Just stood there, shaking, the truth finally ripping itself free.
He stilled. His eyes went wide.
“She was there.” My voice cracked. “Inside that bathroom. Unconscious. Probably scared out of her mind, not knowing if anyone was coming, not knowing if she was going to—” I couldn’t finish the sentence. Couldn’t say the words.
The image was too sharp. Naija on that bathroom floor, smoke filling her lungs, fighting for air. And me, on my couch, oblivious, comfortable, safe.
A sob caught in my throat. I swallowed it down.
“I fucking left her there, Cassian.”
He stepped forward, hands reaching for my face. “It’s not your fault—”
I stepped back. Away from his touch. Away from the comfort I didn’t deserve.
“Oh, don’t give me that.” The words were sharp, cutting, a blade to keep him at a distance. “I know it wasn’t my fault. I know that. It wasn’t any of our faults.” My voice wavered. “But that doesn’t change the fact that I wasn’t there.”
My heart was a bruise I couldn’t stop pressing on.
It ached with every breath, every memory of what I should have done differently.
My head throbbed, heavy with guilt and exhaustion and the sickening replay of every moment I’d failed.
I pressed my palm to my chest and held it there, as if I could keep myself from cracking open.
“I wasn’t there.” The words were quieter now, meant for myself. “Why would she want me there now? When I wasn’t there when I should have been?”
I looked down at the ground. At the asphalt.
At anything but his face. I didn’t want to see pity there.
Didn’t want him to tell me I was being ridiculous, that Naija would understand, that everything would be fine.
I just wanted to do something. To work. To plan.
To be useful in the only way I knew how.
So she wouldn’t feel like I left her alone. So she wouldn’t be mad at me.
So she wouldn’t… wouldn’t want to leave me too.
“I mean, who cares about a stupid jinx?” The words tumbled out, bitter and broken.
“I shouldn’t have left. I stayed away and disaster still happened, so what was the point?
I should have just stayed. At least then maybe I would have been in that bathroom with her.
Maybe I could have—I don’t know—but it would have been better than this.
Better than sitting at home like an idiot while she was—”
My words cut off.
The air left me in a rush.
Everything stopped.
Because Cassian had pulled me into his arms.
He didn’t ask. Didn’t warn. Didn’t give me time to prepare or pull away or build another wall.
He just moved.
His arms came around me and pulled me into him, tight and sure, like if he didn’t hold on hard enough, I might slip through his fingers and disappear into the night.
My head landed against his chest, my cheek pressed to the fabric of his shirt, and underneath it I could hear it.
Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump.
His heartbeat. Real, alive and here.
He rested his cheek against mine, his skin warm against my own. His lips brushed my ear as he whispered.
“Do you know what I felt when everything went down?” His voice was raw, cracked open. “When there was chaos and everyone was running and screaming?” A shaky breath escaped him, warm against my skin. “All I felt was relief.”
I went still in his arms.
“I was relieved that you weren’t there.” His voice cracked.
“That you had already left. That you were safe somewhere, away from the fire, away from the smoke, away from everything. I was relieved. Even though two people were trapped. Even though Naija—” He stopped, a shudder running through him.
“I was still relieved that you weren’t there. And I still am.”
His hands tightened around me, desperate, clinging.
“Selfish, aren’t I?”
I couldn’t answer. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe.
“Focus on that, Alessia.” His voice was urgent now, pleading.
“Focus on how selfish I am. Keep your focus on me. Curse me. Call me names. Tell me I only think about myself. Tell me I don’t care about anyone else.
” His grip tightened. “But please. Please don’t say that you should have been in that room.
Don’t say that. I am selfish enough to ask that of you. I am selfish enough to beg.”
My eyes burned. My breathing quickened, shallow and uneven.
He pulled me back just enough to see my face. His hands cupped my cheeks, gentle and trembling, forcing me to look at him. I blinked through the blur of tears, and there he was—his face twisted with pain, his own eyes shining.
“She’s okay.” He wiped a tear from my face. Another followed immediately. He wiped that one too. “She’s okay, Alessia. She’s alive. She’s breathing. She’s going to be fine.”
He kept wiping. It was useless, every tear he caught, another fell, but he kept trying. Kept stroking his thumbs across my cheeks, catching what he could, refusing to stop.
“You don’t need to do anything right now.
” His voice was the only solid thing in a spinning world.
“You don’t need to fix anything. You don’t need to plan or work or make anything right.
You just need to go to her. Sit beside her.
Hold her hand. Talk to her.” A wet, broken smile touched his lips.
“Maybe bitch about me. Tell her I’m annoying.
Tell her I followed you around like a lost puppy. She’ll like that.”
His eyes held mine, filled with tears of his own. “That’s it. That’s all she wants from you. That’s all she needs. Just you, being there. That’s enough. You’re enough.”
My eyes stayed on his, but I wasn’t seeing him anymore. I was seeing Naija. Alone in that bathroom.
“She must have been so scared.” The words came out a whisper, barely there.
His breath stuttered. His tears fell faster now, sliding down his cheeks in quick, unbroken streams, dripping from his jaw onto the pavement between us.
My own tears had been falling for so long I’d stopped noticing them. They were just part of my face now, a constant river carving paths through the wreckage.
“She must have tried to open the door.” My voice cracked. “She must have pulled at it, pushed against it, maybe it got stuck.” I choked on the words. “She must have banged on it. Yelled for help. Screamed until her voice gave out.”
A sob escaped me.
“She must have done all of that until she couldn’t anymore. Until she just… fell. Right there by the door. Trying to get out. Trying to reach someone.”
Cassian didn’t move to wipe his tears. Instead, he dropped his forehead to rest against mine. “She’s fine now.” His voice was thick, barely recognizable. “She’s okay, Alessia. She’s okay.”
But I couldn’t hear him. Couldn’t grasp the words through the images playing in my mind.
“What if they were late?” The question tore out of me, raw and desperate. “What if they hadn’t reached her in time? What if no one even found her? What if—”
“Don’t.” He shook his head, his forehead moving against mine. His hands stroked my arms, up and down, up and down. “Don’t do that. Don’t play the what if game. It’ll destroy you.”
I dropped my head. Looked down at my feet. At the sneakers he’d brought me, the ones I’d put on without thinking, without seeing, without anything.
Tiny bunnies covered them. Little white bunnies with pink ears, scattered across the fabric.
Another tear fell. It landed on one of the bunnies, darkening the fabric.