"Because—" He gestures vaguely at everything. At us. At the handcuffs. At the entire situation. "This is already insane. I'm not going to?—"
"Going to what? Sleep? In a bed? With someone who's literally chained to you anyway?" I'm too tired to be diplomatic about this. "Rex, I can barely keep my eyes open. You've been through hell. Neither of us is going anywhere tonight. Just... lie down. Please."
Thepleaseseems to catch him off guard.
He stares at me, that single blue eye searching my face like he's looking for the trap, the angle, the reason this is all going to blow up in both our faces.
He won't find one. I'm too fucking tired to have ulterior motives anyway, even if I wanted them.
"Fine," he says finally, and the word comes out like it's being dragged from him with fishhooks. "But if you?—"
"I'm not going to try anything. I'm not going to look at you weird. I'm not going to… whatever you're afraid of." I'm already scooting toward the pillows, tugging him along by the chain. "Come on. Before I get too tired to even get under the blankets."
He makes a soft growl-adjacent sound that might be agreement.
Or it might be his soul leaving his body.
Hard to tell with Rex.
I settle against the pillows, arranging myself so the chain isn't pulling awkwardly on either of our wrists. Rex lies down beside me, stiff as a board, clearly hating every second of this.
But he's here.
That's something.
The bed is bigger than I expected. We're not touching except where the chain connects us. There's a solid foot of space between our bodies, which feels both like too much and not enough.
I turn my head. Rex's eye is closed. His breathing has evened out. He isn't asleep, but he's close. The tension has drained from his shoulders slightly. His hand rests on his chest, the chain stretched between us catching the faint light.
I feel myself drifting.
The bed is warm. The rain is white noise. Rex's presence beside me is solid and real and…
My body moves without permission.
I roll toward him. Curl slightly, unconsciously seeking heat. My hand, the one attached to the cuffed wrist, lands on his chest. My fingers close around a fistful of his shirt, right over his heart.
I feel him stop breathing.
Everything goes very still.
Part of me—the part that's still barely conscious—registers what I've done. Registers that I should probably let go, roll back to my side of the bed, pretend this never happened before I make everything fucking weird.
But I'm too tired. Too far gone. And his heartbeat under my palm is steady and strong and real, proof that he's alive, that he walked out of that cemetery instead of staying in the mud until the rain finally won.
His breath comes back in a slow, careful exhale. His body stays rigid beneath my hand. But he doesn't move. Doesn't break the contact.
I wait for him to push me away.
He doesn't.
CHAPTER 13
REX
She's touching me.
That's the thought that keeps circling back, refusing to settle, refusing to let my brain do anything useful like shut down and sleep. Bells is touching me. Her fingers are curled into the fabric of my shirt like she's afraid I'll disappear if she lets go. Her hand is right over my heart.