Emerson inches closer, staring like I just sprouted horns.
“Baby,” he says slowly, “you’re muttering about octopus supremacy. Do you need water? A nap? A foursome? Because I’m picking up… something.”
I turn my head and give him a long stare. He studies my eyes, tracking the dangerous little spark between them. When he sees it, something wicked flickers over his face too.
“There she is,” he breathes with a grin. “My bright-haired, beautifully unhinged pixie. Thought we lost you there for a bit.”
Muted.
He’s not wrong. I have been. Too quiet. Too numb.
The smile fades from my lips, but not my eyes. “Yeah,” I breathe, my shoulders locked tight. “I’m still here.” My voice comes out rough—graveled, edged with violence—the sound of someone broken and reforged in rage.
Emerson’s grin turns sharp. “Good,” he murmurs. “Because we’re going to need your particular brand of crazy before this is over.”
He isn’t joking. Neither am I.
Because the part of me that went quiet during the fear is waking up again.
And she is hungry.
The warrior inside me settles into a crouch the second my fingers hit the keys, perching on my ribcage waiting for the next throat to tear out. I crack my knuckles once, twice, letting the familiar sting fire through my hands as I dive back into the screens glowing in front of me. The world narrows to shifting code, failed trails, scraped data. Every dead end ratchets my pulse tighter, a grinding pressure behind my sternum.
Emerson leans in and kisses my cheek, light and warm in a way that feels foreign after the filth of the last days. It slides across my skin like a promise I didn’t know I needed.
“I’m going to check on the guys and breakfast,” he murmurs.
I grunt something that’s meant to pass for agreement, though it probably lands closer to a threat. I’m already back in the digital maze, hunting—cutting through lines of data like bone. But even submerged, I’m never so far gone that I can’t hear the people I love.
Em’s voice drifts from the hallway, low and worried. “She’s growling again,” he says, like I’m some mythical creature he’s trying to diagnose. “And she mentioned octopus hot dogs. Is that… normal?”
There’s a beat of silence, then Ronan’s bark of laughter hits like a gunshot. “Pixie,” he calls down the hall, “Em thinks you lost it. Says you’re muttering about octopuses.”
I do not look away from the screen, do not stop typing, but my mouth twitches in a dark, delighted grin. Emerson must glare at him because the next sound is a hushed, frantic whisper telling Ronan to shut up because he’s actually concerned.
“Please explain to them,” I yell back, amused.
He groans like I’ve ruined his morning, and I can hear him begrudgingly retell my brilliant idea for a calling card. A masterpiece, if you ask me.
Rowan’s voice follows, flat with disbelief. “Fuck.”
Emerson adds a weary “Damn,” but now they’re laughing too.
A moment later Em reappears, carrying a plate of food, and tries to hand it to me without interrupting my workflow. I force myself to pause, take it, and set it down. Then I reach over and fist the front of his shirt, stopping his retreat.
His body goes still, not from fear but from recognition. He knows this version of me. The one hanging off the edge, barely balanced between brilliance and bloodlust.
I tug him closer until the heat of his breath brushes my lips.
“Em,” I say quietly, “are you scared for me or of me?”
The question is sharper than I mean it to be. It slips out of the wounded part of me; the part stitched together badly after years of clawing my way out of the hell our fathers built. The part afraid that my darkness is growing teeth again. The part terrified that Emerson, whose heart is too good for this world, might back away once he sees too clearly what I’m capable of.
His hand covers mine where it grips his shirt. Warm. Steady. He leans down until his forehead presses against mine, a gentle touch that hits harder than any blow.
“Baby,” he whispers, breath mixing with mine, “I am scared because of what they did to you. Not of you.”
A fault line splits inside me. What’s left sets hard.