Two.
She stops in front of me. Tilts her head back to look up, way up, because even in combat boots she barely reaches my collarbone.
"Ready?" she asks.
No.
"Just do it."
She reaches up.
CHAPTER 25
BELLS
Rex's fingers are trembling.
I can see it as I close the distance. The fine vibration running through his hands where they hang at his sides, the way his jaw is locked so tight the tendons in his neck stand out like bridge cables.
I reach up.
Temple. Cheekbone. Jaw.
My fingertips find the first contact point and Rex flinches so hard his whole body jerks backward. His hand shoots up and catches my wrist mid-air, crushing it.
"Wait—"
"It's just me," I say. Calm. Steady. Like talking down a spooked horse. "It's just me, Rex."
His eye is wild. Blown wide, the ice-blue iris barely a sliver around the black of his pupil. His chest heaves. His grip on my wrist is just shy of painful.
"I know who it is," he snarls. "I saidwait."
"Okay." I don't pull away. Don't fight his grip. Just stand there with my arm suspended between us, his fingers wrapped around my wrist, his pulse hammering against my skin. "Take your time."
His breathing is ragged. In through his nose, out through his teeth, the kind of deliberate combat breathing that means his body has gone full fight-or-flight and he's trying to wrangle it back.
He lets go of my wrist.
"Again," he grits out.
I reach up. Slower this time. Telegraphing every inch.
My fingertips brush the temple contact and Rex's whole body locks up. Not a flinch this time.
Worse.
Total freeze.
His eye goes flat and empty and far away, that dissociative void I've seen too many times, and his hands ball into fists at his sides.
"Rex. Stay with me."
Nothing.
"Rex."
His eye snaps back into focus.