The middle window was open a few inches. It always had been. So I did what I’d always done. I pushed it up and let myself in.
I could only imagine the picture I made, slinging one leg over the sill onto the cushion of the window seat. But Sloane didn’t laugh. Or yell. Or tell me to go fuck myself and leave her alone.
She looked directly at me, then covered her face with her hands and cried harder.
“Fuck,” I muttered, clambering into the room and racing to her side. “Sloane. Baby.” My hands searched her arms and torso for injuries. Because only the worst injuries could break her like this. The worst injuries and the worst heartbreaks.
Finding nothing, I shifted her into my arms. Panic was a living breathing thing in my chest when she didn’t fight me. She should be telling me what an asshole I was. She should be throwing me out. Not collapsing against me.
I picked her up and held her cradled against my chest, and when she didn’t start throwing punches and insults, I marched us to the head of her bed. I dragged the covers back, kicked off my ruined shoes, and sat against the pile of pillows, still holding her.
Silent sobs racked her body, forming wounds in my cold, black heart. A bottomless well of tears soaked my shirt as I held her tighter to me and let one hand stroke down her ponytail. Over and over again. She smelled like the kind of smoke that destroyed dreams, and I could hardly bear it.
Yet even though it carved me up to see her pain, I realized what a gift this was. To be here when she broke. To pick up the pieces and help her put them back together again.
I didn’t tell her it would be okay. I didn’t beg her to stop crying. I just held on tight as my pathetic, cowardly heart broke.
I thought I’d been doing the right thing by keeping her at a distance. She was supposed to have been safer that way. But by leaving her alone, I’d left her vulnerable to a danger I hadn’t anticipated. I wanted to protect her from me, from the dark shadow that was my past, from the danger that was my present. But I’d left her open and vulnerable to something else. Something that had almost stolen her from me.
If my distance couldn’t protect her, my proximity would. From now on, I would be Sloane’s shadow.
The tears stopped sometime later. They were replaced by full-body shivers. She still hadn’t spoken a word to me. And I was eager to do whatever I could before she regained her voice and tried to kick me out. Without a warning, I gathered her up and carried her into the bathroom.
“What are you doing?” Her usually husky voice was a painful rasp.
“You’re shivering,” I said, leaning down to turn on the water to the tub. It was a deep, jetted tub built into a tile surround under a stained glass window.
“N-no, I’m n-not,” she whispered through chattering teeth.
It took two tries before I could put her down. Terrified that she’d run, I didn’t take my eyes off her as I closed the tub drain. She had candles on the tile surrounding the tub. I pulled the lighter out of my pocket and lit them. Still not trusting her to stay, I closed my hand gently around her wrist and pulled her with me as I gathered fluffy, sage-green towels and stacked them next to the tub. She came with me willingly as I pulled her toward the shower where I collected her shampoo, conditioner, and soap.
I arranged the haul and adjusted the water temperature, all with my grip still firm on her.
When I finally turned to face her, she was staring blankly at the water as it poured forth. Tears had carved paths through the filth marring her lovely face. There was no light, no fight in those beautiful green eyes. No emerald flames warning me of my imminent verbal evisceration.
“We need to take off your clothes, Pixie.”
She gave no sign of having heard me, so I saw to it myself. I reached out and dragged the ruined sweater over her head. I sucked in a vicious breath when I saw the bruises already forming on her arms and ribs. Still she made no move to stop me or help. So I continued.
There was a tender vulnerability in the way she let me undress her like she was a doll. As the tub filled, I took my time, peeling away the layers and discarding them until she stood there shaking and naked. Dirt and soot streaked her face, hands, and hair. Bruises painted her ivory skin as if her body was a canvas.
Fury burned inside me. I wouldn’t rest until I knew who was responsible for those bruises and made them pay.
Her beauty was so exquisitely fragile I couldn’t catch my breath.
I’d almost lost her. Really lost her. Not pushed her away, but lost her. I could have already seen her for the last time and not known it. That thought sunk in on a razor-edged moment of clarity.