47. Chapter Forty-Seven #2
“I know,” he whispers, forehead against mine. “I know. We’re going to find him. I swear to you. We’re going to find him and bring him home to us.”
I clutch his shirt with trembling fingers, sobbing into his chest as days of numbness crack open into a storm. Hugo crawls fully onto the bed and presses his head against my stomach, whining softly.
Max holds me. Tight. Steady. Fierce. Like he can hold all the broken pieces of me until I can breathe again. For the first time since Liam left, I feel something. I feel everything. It hurts like hell. But it means I’m alive.
My breathing finally evens out in Max’s arms. Slow. Heavy. Painful. But real. He brushes a few strands of hair off my damp cheeks and leans back just enough to see my face. His eyes are still red, jaw tight, but there’s purpose in him again. Focus.
“Sparrow,” he murmurs, “We have some leads.”
He helps me sit up carefully, his hands steady on my waist. Hugo stays pressed to my legs, as if making sure I don’t disappear again.
Leads. They found something. The word freezes the air between us.
Max sits beside me, thigh to thigh, voice low. “It’s not much. He… he didn’t want us coming after him.”
A hollow ache settles behind my ribs. Of course, Liam didn’t want us to follow. He walked into hell alone because he thought it would save me. Save all of us.
“He went to kill Sebastian alone,” I whisper. My voice sounds like it’s been dragged across broken glass. “If he succeeded, he would have come home by now. You know that, Max.”
Max’s jaw clenches. He doesn’t argue. He doesn’t need to. We both know Liam too well.
“He did it to protect you, all of us,” Max says quietly. “He thinks he can end this alone.”
“He can’t.” The words tear out of me, sharp and shaking. “Not after what Sebastian did to me after the crash. What he did to Donnie. Not after everything he’s put us through. He will kill him, Max. He will break him first, and then he will kill him.”
Max cups the back of my neck, pulling my forehead to his. “Okay,” he breathes. “Okay, Sparrow. Then we find him and go after him.”
My eyes burn again, but not from dissociation this time. From purpose. From fire.
Max’s hands slide down to my arms, squeezing gently. “But first we shower. We get you grounded. You eat something. Then we go over everything Elias found. You won’t make it far if you’re running on nothing.”
I want to argue. To sprint out the door barefoot. To burn the city down to reach Liam. But Max is right. I nod. He exhales like he wasn’t sure I would.
“Come on,” he murmurs, standing and guiding me gently off the bed. “I’ve got you.”
He walks me to the bathroom, his hand never leaving mine. Hugo follows until Max looks at him and whispers, “Bleib,” and Hugo lies down outside the door with a soft, obedient huff.
Max turns on the shower, warm steam rising instantly, fogging the mirror, and steps behind me, his fingers brushing the hem of Liam’s shirt still hanging off my shoulders.
His voice drops, quiet and reverent. “Let me take care of you, Sparrow.”
I melt. Not because I’m weak, but because Max is the only thing keeping me upright right now. He lifts the shirt over my head, slow and gentle, like undressing me too quickly will break whatever fragile tether is keeping me in my body.
The steam wraps around us, thick and warm. Max steps into the shower with me, his hands coming up to cradle my face. Water cascades over us, soothing raw nerves, rinsing the salt and tears from his cheeks and mine.
He presses his forehead to mine. “I can’t lose either of you,” he whispers. “I can’t.”
His voice breaks again. I grab his face in both hands, pulling him into a kiss that’s not sexual, not at first, but desperate. Grief-stricken. A lifeline thrown between two people drowning in the same ocean.
Max’s breath shudders as he kisses me back, hands sliding down my back, holding me against him like he’s anchoring himself too. The kiss deepens. Slow. Intense. A promise wrapped in grief.
The water beats down on our shoulders as he presses me gently into the tile, his fingers trembling where they trace my jaw, my collarbone, the curve of my waist, like he’s memorizing me, terrified I’ll vanish again.
I fumble for his face, pulling him closer, needing to feel him, needing something real to cling to so I don’t slip back under.
He kisses my temple. My cheek. The corner of my mouth. Each touch is reverent, grounding.
“Stay with me,” he whispers into my skin. “Right here. Right now. Stay with me.”
“I’m trying,” I breathe. And I am. God, I am.
He kisses me again, slow and aching, a kiss that says everything he’s too wrecked to speak. I slide my hands through his soaked hair, pulling him closer as our bodies press together in the heat and steam. Emotion crackles between us, heavy and electric, tangled in heartbreak and devotion.
Max holds my face between his palms. “I’ve got you, Sparrow,” he rasps. “I’ll always have you.”
He slowly lifts one of my legs, and when he pushes into me, the intimacy isn’t rushed.
It isn't as graphic, not like the last time we were in the shower together. It’s raw, emotional, skin-to-skin and heart-to-heart, two broken pieces finding each other in the middle of a storm.
For the first time since Liam left, I feel whole enough to breathe for a moment.