Seraphina
The soft click of the bathroom door echoed through the cottage long after Elias disappeared down the hallway.
I kept staring at the empty doorway anyway, my mind refusing to move forward.
Somehow, against every outcome I'd prepared myself for over the last few hours, my desperate plea hadn't disappeared into another empty room.
He'd heard me. He hadn't looked at me like another witness waiting to give a statement or another victim whose name would disappear into an evidence file.
He'd looked at me like I mattered. Like letting go of me hadn't even crossed his mind.
I wasn't entirely sure what to do with that. I wasn't used to people staying.
It took me a while to make my way to the shower, my body moving through some strange version of autopilot.
Every muscle protested as I stepped beneath the icy mountain water before it slowly warmed around me.
I stood there far longer than necessary, working the vanilla and cedar body wash over my skin until it stung, rubbing shampoo through my curls while brown water spiralled toward the drain, followed by streaks of crimson that slowly faded into nothing.
I watched the water run clear for longer than I should have, trying to convince myself that if the blood could disappear so easily, maybe the memories could too.
Collins's voice still echoed inside my skull.
The smell of damp concrete still lingered somewhere beneath my skin. I scrubbed until my arms felt numb.
Somewhere beyond the steam-filled bathroom, something crackled softly.
Not silence.
A radio.
An old country song drifted faintly through the walls, softened by static and distance. It sounded worn, familiar, like it had probably been playing in this cottage long before I arrived.
Curiosity curled quietly inside my chest.
I shut the water off, wrapping one of Elias's thick towels tightly around myself before realising I still didn't have the clothes he'd promised.
For a moment I simply stood there chewing the inside of my cheek.
Elias had already carried me through an active crime scene, held me while I cried, peeled ropes from my wrists and refused to leave my side.
Walking into his bedroom wrapped in a towel somehow felt more intimate than all of that put together.
Everything between us felt softer now. Quieter and somehow that frightened me more than the warehouse ever had.
The ache in my ribs reminded me to breathe as I cracked the bathroom door open. Steam rolled into the hallway while the radio grew louder, accompanied by another sound.
Shhh...
Shhh…
Shhh...
Metal against stone. Slow. Measured. Patient.
The bed sat exactly as I'd left it, neatly made, the clothes folded in careful squares near the footboard. Elias stood beside the bedroom window with his back to me.
One forearm rested against the wooden frame while the other moved steadily across a whetstone, drawing his service knife across the surface with slow, deliberate strokes. Again. Again. Again.
The blade didn't need sharpening. I knew that before I even reached him. This wasn't maintenance. This was a ritual.
His broad shoulders were rigid beneath a dark charcoal Henley; the sleeves pushed carelessly to his forearms. His hair was still damp from his own shower, dark strands falling untidily across his forehead.
Every few strokes his jaw tightened before relaxing again, his breathing remaining perfectly controlled even though something told me the detective inside him was anything but calm. This...
This felt more vulnerable. He wasn't sharpening a knife. He was trying to stop his hands from remembering everything they'd touched tonight. For the first time since meeting him, I stopped trying to solve him. I wasn't cataloguing evidence. I wasn't looking for another piece of the puzzle.
I simply watched.
The scrape of steel against stone became almost hypnotic, each stroke carrying something too heavy for words. He wasn't grieving. Collins was still out there somewhere hiding in the mountains, and Elias would never mourn a man like him.
No.
This sounded like guilt. Like relief. Like rage he hadn't yet found somewhere safe to put. I felt it settle somewhere deep inside my own ribs.
God...
My heart hurt for him. Not because he looked broken. Because he refused to let himself be. The blade stopped moving.
Silence settled between us.
Without turning around, he said quietly.
"You can stop hiding behind the door now."
Heat rushed straight into my face.
"I wasn't hiding."
"No?" His voice carried the smallest hint of amusement.
"Then you were doing an impressive job pretending to be invisible."
I stepped farther into the room, my bare feet squeaking softly against the pine floorboards.
"I didn't mean to interrupt."
"You didn't."
He finally turned. Those glacier-blue eyes landed on me for only a second before dropping politely to the floor. The detective. Always giving me somewhere safe to stand.
"I heard the radio," I admitted.
"Thought you'd fallen asleep."
"It helps fill the silence."
I smiled.
"You listen to old country music?"
"My grandfather did."
"So, you inherited a questionable taste."
"I inherited a radio."
A laugh escaped before I could stop it.
"There it is," he muttered.
"What?"
"I've been waiting to hear you laugh again."
The words stole every smart reply I had. He crossed the room, picking up the folded pile from the bed before holding it out toward me.
"I found something that should fit."
I reached for it. Soft cotton. An oversized academy T-shirt. A pair of loose black sweatpants with the drawstring tied in a careful knot. Nothing fancy. Nothing expensive. Completely Elias.
My fingers lingered against the fabric longer than necessary.
"They're clean but they'll probably be too big."
"It doesn’t matter, thank you."
"You can roll the sleeves."
I looked up, unable to stop smiling.
"You always explain everything?"
"I've been told I do."
"You have?"
His mouth twitched barely. Enough that I counted it as a victory, but he quickly pulls it back from my grasp, his large fingers tightening on the hem.
“I need to bandage your wounds first.”
I nod, my shoulders pulling inward. “Okay.”
“Sit.”
I sit on the edge of his bed.
“Lean back.”
I lean back against the green quilted coverlet. A strangled, breathless laugh comes from the back of my throat, a sudden pain tingling my side from what I assume is a fractured rib.
“Did anyone ever tell you you’re bossy, Detective?”
“No, I believe people expect it of me, but I’ll keep that in mind.”
The smile on my face is hard to remove because he’s smirking, and not in a wicked way. In this funny, happy, ordinary sort of way that makes the house feel perfectly level.
“Drop the towel,” he orders, dropping down to kneel on the floorboards right in front of me, his heavy utility medical bag open between his knees.
“Wh..what? Why?”
My heart rate suddenly spikes, a violent thrum behind my ears, my thighs locking together automatically. The sight of him on the ground, kneeling, doesn’t seem right. Me, Seraphina Calloway, making Detective Elias Reed get on his knees. It just doesn't add up in the layout of my mind.
“I need to see if you’re still bleeding and if any of your wounds need cleaning.”
He says, his tone shifting back into something entirely clinical, like he’s a doctor and I’m a patient in need of an active administrative review. As if he is completely clueless about what happens to my system when he is close, let alone close while I’m naked.
“Why can’t I just…uhm, I don’t think it’s necessary-”
“Let me see what they did to you, baby.”
The low, guttural rumble at the back of his throat makes me jump, the air leaving my lungs completely.
“Show me so that when I track down Collins, I’ll know exactly what he has to pay for laying a finger on your skin. Show me, so that I can help, please baby.”
I swallow the hard lump in my throat, my fingers trembling as I drag the towel downward. The cold air of his bedroom bites at my nipples, my face turning a deep, burning red as they harden under his gaze. I let the fabric fall until it sits just above my waist, baring my upper half to him entirely.
“All the way,” he orders, his dark eyes darkening as they trace the alignment of my ribs.
I bite the inside of my cheek, a tiny, hot whisper leaving my lips.
“They uhm didn't touch me down there, Elias.”
Thankfully, he doesn't push the mechanics of that issue…
My eyes spare a look down at my own abdomen, and I can't help but wince at the graphic sight.
There are three short, deep cuts that are still leaking a thin stream of red down my skin, some deeper than the others.
They run jagged along my sides, one slicing across my belly that looks deep enough to leave a permanent scar.
My eyebrows furrow in disgust as I wince from my bruised face and at the nasty, purple bruises that freshly adorn my rib cage. It looks awful. I look awful. I know I felt the pain of what they did to me and I knew it was going to be bad. I just never thought I would have let Elias see me like this.
I feel his fingers against my skin, warm and cool at the same time making me jump a little.
The pads of his finger skates across my hip bone, drawing a line up my ribs and across my stomach.
Just soft touches. At first, I thought it might be medicine or him cleaning the wounds, but as I chanced a look down, it’s just his bare hand.
When I look at his face he’s staring at me at my skin, my bruises with a sudden fury in his eyes. A face completely filled with darkness, the darkest dark I’ve ever seen in his eyes . He looks like a man possessed with fury. With anger.
“Did you know you have freckles here,” he whispers tightly like he is holding himself back.
My breath catches hard in my throat, completely unsure of how to respond or even operate my lungs. His fingers just keep tracing the light brown spots across my skin, like he is mapping where they are scattered like he simply can’t help himself.
His hand continues its quiet journey, tracing each little constellation with absent fascination, as though cataloguing every detail into memory.
A bead of blood slips from one of the deeper cuts, rolling slowly toward the centre of my stomach.
His thumb catches it before it can fall.
His expression shifts. Something old. Something unbearably sad.
"So much blood," he murmurs, almost to himself.
"It'll stop."
"It shouldn't have happened to begin with, Seraphina"
His thumb brushes lightly against my skin again, careful not to press the wound.
"I was supposed to get there sooner."
I shake my head.
"No."
"I was."
The certainty in his voice breaks something inside me.
I don't see Detective Elias Reed anymore.
I see a man carrying far too many ghosts.
His fingers remain against my skin. Steady.
Grounding. The ache in my ribs fades beneath the warmth blooming somewhere much deeper.
Touching Elias has never felt ordinary. It never will.
Every brush of skin feels like recognition as though some forgotten part of my soul has finally found its way home.
Time slows. The cottage grows impossibly quiet.
Only our breathing exists. Only the space between us.
His hand slips away as he finally reaches into the medical bag.
"Let me make it better for you baby. Give me your face."
I lean forward ignoring the sting of pain in my ribs.
He pulls out antiseptic and fresh gauze.
The pain reduces, trickling down from my mind as a sudden lust boils in my stomach, rising from the temperature of my body, making my thighs tighten and my core ache.
He starts cleaning my wounds. Starting from my face wiping away the blood then blowing the sterile swab residue clean bandaging my scars.
Slowly he works his way down until he is by torso, leaning further down he forces my legs open to make space for his broad shoulders.
The warmth of his skin touching my inner thighs makes me shiver.
He keeps checking, looking around touching my ribs, the cuts as if he doesn’t know how intimate this is as if my nipples aren't pebbles trying to greet him wanting his touch.